Intermittent gastric outlet obstruction due to a gallstone migrated through a cholecysto-gastric fistula: A new variant of "Bouveret's syndrome"

Bouveret's syndrome, defined as gastric outlet obstruction due to a large gallstone, is still one of the most dramatic biliary gallstone complications. Although new radiological and endoscopic techniques have made pre-surgical diagnosis possible in most cases and the death rate has dropped dramatically, "one-stage surgery" (biliary surgery carried out at the same time as the removal of the gut obstruction) should be still considered as the gold standard for the treatment of gallstone ileus. In this case, partial gastric outlet obstruction resulted in an atypical and insidious clinical presentation that allowed us to perform the conventional one-stage laparatomic procedure that completely solved the problem, thus avoiding any further complications. (C) 2008 WJG. All rights reserved.