Use of catheter-based cholangioscopy in the diagnosis of indeterminate stenosis: a multicenter experience.

Background: Direct bile ducts visualization through cholangioscopy has gained popularity due to its better diagnostic accuracy than a standard ERCP in indeterminate biliary stricture.

Methods: We aimed to review our catheter-based cholangioscopy interventions in patients with indeterminate biliary stenosis, using the SpyGlass Direct Visualization System (SDVS) and summarize our experience in terms of procedures and results. We collected 25 consecutive patients with indeterminate biliary stricture over 3 years.

Digital single-operator cholangioscopy in treating difficult biliary stones: results from a multicenter experience.

Background: In clinical practice, standard endoscopic treatment of biliary stones fails in up to 10% of patients, and more invasive procedures such as percutaneous trans-hepatic interventions or surgery might become necessary. The aim of this multicenter retrospective study, based on prospectively-collected data, was to evaluate both the efficacy and the safety of digital-single operator cholangioscopy (D-SOC) to treat difficult biliary stones in cases with a previous failure of conventional endoscopic methods.

Methods: Only patients with a previous failure of endoscopic standard treatment and a D-SOC-based biliary stone treatment using electrohydraulic lithotripsy (EHL) or laser lithotripsy (LL) were included.

[Treatment of biliary lithiasis with the advent of new technologies in Italy in the Lazio and Abruzzo regions over the past 15 years. Comparison between the patient series in a Roman university hospital and in a number of hospitals in the Abruzzo region].

Biliary lithiasis is a disease with a high incidence in the western world and a high social cost. To evaluate the impact of new technologies--mainly laparoscopic cholecystectomy and radiological and endoscopic techniques--in the treatment of biliary lithiasis, a statistical study was conducted on the surgical interventions performed over the past 15 years in Italy in the Lazio and Abruzzo regions. From 1985 to 1999, 150,000 cases of hepatobiliary lithiasis were hospitalized every year in Italy with a mean hospital stay of 7.