A 52-year-old woman in Mexico developed pain under her right ribs after eating foods that stimulate the gallbladder, and she began vomiting bile. She had a positive Murphy's sign, a classic exam finding for gallbladder inflammation, and an ultrasound confirmed she had gallstones.
It looked like a textbook gallbladder attack. But a CT scan revealed something far less common: a large, spontaneous bleed around her right kidney, with an estimated volume of 577 milliliters, more than half a liter. The condition is called Wünderlich syndrome, and surgeons and a pathologist at Hospital General de Tlaxcala described the case Sept. 20 in the Journal of Surgical Case Reports.
