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The main reason to treat gallstones is to prevent painful attacks and possible complications, including inflammation and infection of the gallbladder (acute cholecystitis) and inflammation of the pancreas (pancreatitis). If you feel comfortable managing mild and infrequent gallstone attacks and your health professional believes that you are not likely to have serious complications, you may choose not to have surgery. Most medical experts recommend surgery if you have had repeated attacks of gallstones. If you have had one attack of gallstone pain, you may want to wait to see whether you have more. You might be able to try non-surgical methods to treat gallstones if they are small and not made of calcium or if you have stones in the common bile duct, which is the tube that connects the liver and the gallbladder to the small intestine. Doctors may try non-surgical methods to remove gallstones. Bile acids are sometimes used to dissolve gallstones. They may be used alone or after lithotripsy, which breaks up small, noncalcified gallstones with shock waves that are focused by ultrasound. For some people who cannot have surgery, a special type of endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatogram (ERCP) called endoscopic sphincterotomy may be used to remove gallstones that block the common bile duct. The doctor places an endoscope down the throat to the small intestine. The doctor then uses another procedure to widen the opening between the common bile duct and the small intestine and takes the stones out using a small basket. However, endoscopic sphincterotomy may not prevent the need for gallbladder removal. One study found that symptoms returned within 2 years in 47% of people who had only sphincterotomy, compared with 2% who had immediate gallbladder removal. Of those people in the study who had recurrent symptoms, 81% eventually needed cholecystectomy. Overall, gallstones return within 5 years after non-surgical treatment in 30% to 50% of people. Source: http://www.bchealthguide.org/kbase/dp/topic/aa57471/dp.htm

For patients who cannot receive the laparoscopic procedure, there is also a nonsurgical treatment in which ursodeoxycholic acid is used to dissolve the gallstones. Extracorporeal shock-wave lithotripsy has also been successfully used to break up gallstones. During the procedure, high-amplitude sound waves target the stones, slowly breaking them up.