Impacted Viable Cholesterol Polyp: A Rare Etiology of Acute Cholecystitis

Acute cholecystitis is generally caused by the incarceration of a gallstone. This patient case report provides an extremely rare case of acute cholecystitis caused by an impacted viable cholesterol polyp. Typically, cholesterol polyps are connected to the gallbladder mucosa by a fine filamentous stalk. They are reported to disappear or decrease in size occasionally without symptoms. This process is usually attributed to detachment and subsequent devascularization, leading to degenerative changes and tissue necrosis. It is hypothesized that acute cholecystitis could be caused by a viable cholesterol polyp that arises only under specific circumstances. In this patient, the cholesterol polyps originated in the gallbladder neck and became impacted in situ, leading to acute cholecystitis before any histopathologically degenerative changes could have occurred.