The prevalence of gallbladder polyps is higher in HBsAg positive population

In a hospital-based, cross-sectional study, we retro- spectively analyzed the medical records of all the subjects undergoing self-referred health examination at one medical center located at Taichung city in Taiwan between 2000 and 2004. Excluding subjects with cholecystectomy, 3070 men (56.0%) and 2411 women (44.0%) were included in the study. Mean age was 49.2 ± 12.3 years (range from 20 to 87). Ultrasonographic findings showed a normal gallbladder in 4920 subjects (89.8%), polyps in 265 subjects (4.8%), stones in 278 subjects (5.1%), and mixed stones/polyps in 18 sub- jects (0.3%). Thus, the overall prevalence of gallbladder polyps was 5.1% [(265 + 18)/5481]. Data from these 283 subjects were used for further evaluation. Among 283 subjects with polyps (265+18), due to missing data, we found that 139 subjects (50.2%) had a single gallbladder polyp and 138 subjects (49.8%) had multiple gallbladder polyps (?? 2) (Table 1). The age group of 40- 64 years had a higher prevalence of gallbladder polyps (5.7%) than the other two groups (3.9% in age group 20- 39 years and 4.3% in age group ?? 65 years). Overall, the prevalence of gallbladder polyps was significantly higher in men than in women (7.0% vs 2.9%, P < 0.001). In particular, in age groups 20-39 years and 40-64 years, this prevalence was significantly higher in men than in women (P = 0.028 and P < 0.001, respectively). In the age group of 65 years, men also had higher prevalence than women, but without reaching a statistically signifi- cant difference (P > 0.05) (Fig. 1).