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How many cholecystectomies are done in India every year?

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cholecystectomy annual volume India statistics

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cholecystectomy India epidemiology volume

There is no reliable, nationally representative figure for the annual number of cholecystectomies performed in India. Here is what is known from available evidence:
Why a precise national figure is unavailable
  • India has no unified national surgical registry equivalent to the American College of Surgeons NSQIP or the UK National Surgical Quality Improvement Programme.
  • Procedure volumes are fragmented across government hospitals, corporate chains, and a very large unregulated private sector — most of which do not report centrally.
What estimates suggest
  • Gallstone disease (cholelithiasis) affects roughly 6–9% of the Indian adult population, translating to approximately 60–100 million people carrying gallstones at any given time.
  • Gallbladder disease is the most common indication for elective abdominal surgery in most Indian surgical units.
  • Laparoscopic cholecystectomy has been standard of care since the 1990s, and uptake is high in urban centres.
  • A frequently cited rough estimate in Indian surgical literature is ~1–2 million cholecystectomies per year, but this figure is not drawn from a formal registry — it is extrapolated from disease burden and surgical capacity data.
Context from the literature
  • A 2023 study from an endemic region (Agarwal & Malhotra, Indian Journal of Surgical Oncology) analysed 8,227 gallbladder specimens from a single high-volume centre, illustrating the enormous case load at individual institutions.
  • India is also notable for a disproportionately high rate of gallbladder cancer incidental to cholecystectomy in northern and northeastern regions, which has driven interest in better tracking cholecystectomy outcomes.
Bottom line: A credible, peer-reviewed national figure does not exist in the published literature. The working estimate used in Indian surgical discourse is roughly 1–2 million cholecystectomies per year, making it one of the highest-volume countries in the world for this procedure — consistent with India's large population and high gallstone prevalence. A definitive number would require a national surgical registry, which India currently lacks.
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