Pronounced – GAWL-blah-dur

Your gallbladder is a small, pear-shaped organ located below your liver on the right side of the abdomen. The gallbladder is connected to the liver by bile ducts. The gallbladder is about 3 inches long and 1 inch wide at its thickest part.

Your gallbladder collects and stores bile, a fluid made by your liver to digest fat. The gallbladder can store about 1 cup of bile. Bile contains water, cholesterol, bile salts, fats, proteins, and bilirubin – a bile pigment. As your stomach and intestines digest food, your gallbladder contracts to release bile into the intestine – through a tube called the common bile duct – where the bile salts help to break down fat. Bile also dissolves excess cholesterol. The duct connects your gallbladder and liver to your small intestine.

Eating signals the gallbladder to empty the bile through the bile ducts to help digest fats.

Your gallbladder is most likely to give you trouble if something blocks the flow of bile through the bile ducts. That is usually a gallstone.

Signs and Symptoms of Gallbladder Conditions

Signs and symptoms can vary:

• Abdominal pain
• Nausea and vomiting
• Anorexia
• Jaundice
• Abnormal enlargement of the liver (hepatomegaly)
• Enlarged gallbladder

Many gallbladder problems get better with removal of the gallbladder. The gallbladder is an organ that you can live without, bile has other ways of reaching your small intestine.

Gallbladder cancer begins in the innermost layer of tissue and spreads through the outer layers as it grows.

Source:
1) July 2007 – digestive.niddk.nih.gov
2) August 2008 – win.niddk.nih.gov
3) www.cancer.gov
4) July 2009 – www.nlm.nih.gov