Removal of the gallbladder results in an accelerated enterohepatic circulation of bile salts. It has been suggested that reflux of bile into the stomach after cholecystectomy may predispose a patient to the development of gastric lesions. To examine this hypothesis, 349 patients with endoscopically proved gastric ulcers or mucosal lesions were age and sex matched with 349 patients with upper gastrointestinal symptoms who had normal endoscopic findings. The frequency of cholecystectomy was determined to be 4.3 percent in the gastric ulcer group (control 3.7 percent) and 3.8 percent in the mucosal lesions group (control 4.2 percent). There was no statistical difference between patients with gastric ulcer and the control subjects, mucosal lesions and controls in the frequency of cholecystectomy using individually matched case-control comparison. The relative risk for gastric ulcer-matched control comparison was 1.3 (95 percent confidence limit 0.3 to 6.3). The relative risk for mucosal lesion-matched control comparison was 0.85 (95 percent confidence limit 0.2 to 2.9). The data did not support the hypothesis that cholecystectomy increases the propensity to develop gastric lesions.