Associations of cholecystectomy with the risk of gastroesophageal reflux disease: a mendelian randomization study

Background: Cholecystectomy is the standard surgery for patients with gallbladder disease, but the impact of cholecystectomy on gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is not clear. Methods: The authors obtained genetic variants associated with cholecystectomy at a genome-wide significant level ( P -value <5×10 -8 ) as instrumental variables (IVs) and performed Mendelian randomization to explore the relationship with GERD. Results: The Inverse Variance Weighted analysis (IVW) showed that the risk of GERD in patients after cholecystectomy increased (OR=2.19; 95% CI: 1.18–4.09). At the same time, the analysis results of weighted median (OR=2.30; 95% CI: 1.51–3.48) and weighted mode (OR=2.21; 95% CI: 1.42–3.45) were also consistent with the direction of the IVW analysis and were statistically significant ( P <0.05). Conclusions: This study shows that patients who have undergone cholecystectomy are a susceptible population of GERD.