To determine the risk of operations on the biliary tract in the elderly, we retrospectively examined 56 patients 80 years of age or older undergoing choledochotomy for calculous disease and compared their outcomes with those of a contemporary group of 257 patients undergoing similar surgery. Thirty of 56 elderly patients (54%) required urgent surgery for acute cholangitis, acute cholecystitis, or obstructive jaundice (serum bilirubin greater than 5 mg/dL), compared with 97 of 257 younger patients (38%) (p = 0.029). Mortality in elderly patients was significantly higher (5 of 56) than in younger (6 of 257) patients (p = 0.015). In three of the five patients who died, urgent surgery was performed for obstructive jaundice, reflecting the higher mortality experienced by jaundiced patients in the entire series (9.4%). Biliary cultures grew organisms in 25 of 27 elderly patients (93%). This is in contrast to findings of bactibilia in 62 of 118 patients (53%) under the age of 80 (p = 0.001). Similarly, preoperative blood cultures were positive more often in elderly (63%) than in younger patients (26%) (p = 0.007). Mean postoperative hospital recovery was longer in the elderly group (16.2 +/- 8.5 days) than in the younger group (12.2 +/- 9.3 days) (p = 0.002). In conclusion, elderly patients, particularly those with obstructive jaundice, are at higher risk for complicated biliary tract disease necessitating choledochotomy. They appear to be more susceptible to bactibilia and bacteremia, and require longer hospital recovery than younger patients.