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Background: Diabetes Mellitus is known to be associated with an increased risk for devoloping cholecystitis. However, the influence of diabetes on the risk of developing postoperative complications of acute cholecystitis has not been clearly defined. Method: We compared the hospital course of 17 diabetic patients and 49 control subjects who underwent surgical treatment of acute cholecystitis in Koryo General Hospital between January 1983 and November 1993.Significant complications included in this study were bile leakage,retained CBD stone,arrhythmia,atelectasis,pancreatitis and infection-related complications. Infectionrelated complications refer to wound infection, intraabdominal abscess,pneumonia, urinary tract infection, and sepsis. Result: Patients with diabetes mellitus suffered from more postoperative complications than controls(41.2% vs 24.5%, P <.05). Infection-related complications also occured more frequently in diabeties than in controls(29.4% vs 12.2%, P<.05). Conclusion : Infection-related complications were frequently found in the patients with diabetes mellitus who underwent surgical treatment of acute cholecystitis.