Distended Gallbladder Appearing as Abdominal Mass in Full-Term Neonates

Sir.—The cases reported in the clinical memorandum "Normal Gallbladder Appearing as Abdominal Mass in Neonates" by Liechty and colleagues (Journal 1982;136:468-469) include three preterm infants who had palpable right upper-quadrant masses. This interesting clinical finding was related to a lack of enteral feeding. We recently diagnosed this phenomenon in four full-term neonates with appropriate weight for gestational age; it also occurred in one of nonidentical preterm (gestation, 36 weeks) twins. All of our infants were being fed enterally at the time that their gallbladders were distended. We describe one of these infants.

Report of a Case.—A 3,630-g male infant was born at 41 weeks' gestation by vaginal delivery (Apgar score, 9) to a 27-year-old healthy mother (gravida 2, para 1) and a 29-year-old unrelated healthy father. The pregnancy was otherwise normal, and there was no history of any medication, drug abuse, or alcohol intake. The mother smoked up