Surgical removal of the gallbladder is called?

• A. Gastritis
• B. Colitis
• C. Cholecystectomy
• D. Enteritis

Answer: (C)

The main idea tested is how medical terms are built from roots and suffixes to name procedures. The term for removing the gallbladder is cholecystectomy. Here, chole- refers to bile, cyst/o means bladder, so cholecyst- denotes the gallbladder, and the suffix -ectomy signals a surgical removal. Put together, cholecystectomy literally means the surgical removal of the gallbladder, which is a common operation for gallstones or gallbladder disease. The other options use -itis, which means inflammation of a body part: gastritis (stomach), colitis (colon), and enteritis (small intestine).