Abstract
Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography is not always successful even with needle knife precut sphincterotomy (NKPS). How to manage these patients with initial NKPS failure has not been well studied. We report the outcomes of patients who received endoscopic and non-endoscopic rescue treatment after the initial NKPS failure. During the 15 years from 2004 to 2018, 87 patients with initial NKPS failure received interval endoscopic treatment (IET group, n = 43), percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage (PTBD group, n = 25), or bile duct surgery (BDS group, n = 19) were retrospectively studied. Compared with the PTBD group, the prevalence of choledocholithiasis was higher (69.8% vs. 16.0%, p < 0.001), and malignant bile duct stricture were lower (20.9% vs. 76.0%, p < 0.001) in the IET group. Furthermore, the IET group had a significantly longer time interval between the first and second treatment procedures (4 days vs. 2 days, p = 0.001), a lower technique success rate (79.1% vs. 100%, p = 0.021), and a shorter length of hospital stay (7 days vs. 18 days, p < 0.001). Compared to the BDS group, the only significant finding was that the patients in the IET group were older. Although not statistically significant, the complication rate was lowest in the IET group (7.0%) while highest in the BDS group (15.8%). Complications in the IET group were also mild, as compared with the other two groups. In conclusion, IET should be considered after initial failed NKPS for deep biliary cannulation before contemplating more invasive treatment such as BDS. PTBD may be the alternative therapy for patients with malignant biliary obstruction.
Highlights
Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography is not always successful even with needle knife precut sphincterotomy (NKPS)
Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP), PTBD, and bile duct surgery (BDS) are alternative interventions used in the management of biliary diseases
ERCP has become the preferred treatment for most biliary diseases, it is not always successful even with NKPS even in high-volume medical c enters[3]
Summary
Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography is not always successful even with needle knife precut sphincterotomy (NKPS). During the 15 years from 2004 to 2018, 87 patients with initial NKPS failure received interval endoscopic treatment (IET group, n = 43), percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage (PTBD group, n = 25), or bile duct surgery (BDS group, n = 19) were retrospectively studied. Bile duct cannulation cannot be achieved in about 5%–15% of cases[3] In this case, needle knife precut sphincterotomy (NKPS) is often used as a rescue technique[3,4,5,6,7]. We conducted this study to report the outcomes of patients with biliary diseases who received endoscopic and non-endoscopic rescue treatment after the initial NKPS failure due to difficult biliary cannulation
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