Covered Metallic Stents for First-Line Treatment of Benign Bile Duct Strictures
Common Bile Duct Stricture
About this trial
This is an interventional treatment trial for Common Bile Duct Stricture focused on measuring stenosis, bile duct, chronic pancreatitis, postoperative, post-liver transplant
Eligibility Criteria
Inclusion Criteria:
- Bismuth Type I benign bile duct stricture
- Objective signs/symptoms related to the stricture
Exclusion Criteria:
- Suspected malignant etiology for the stricture
- Prior endotherapy within one year of presentation,except in the following two scenarios: 1) Early (< 30 days) stent placement following liver transplant; 2) in patients with chronic pancreatitis, single plastic stent placed during presenting ERCP while evaluating for malignancy
- Bismuth Type II-IV stricture
- Proximal common hepatic duct diameter < 6 mm
- Intact gallbladder, except in cases where a stent can be deployed > 1cm below the cystic duct insertion
- Age < 18 years, pregnancy, incarceration, inability to provide informed consent
- Karnofsky score ≤ 40
- Inability to pass a guidewire proximal to the stricture
- Stricture > 8cm in length
- Life expectancy < 1 year
- Concomitant nonanastomotic biliary strictures or biliary casts
Sites / Locations
- University of Chicago
- Indiana University
- University of Michigan
- Washington University in St. Louis
- University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
- Medical University of South Carolina
- Digestive Health Associates of Texas
- Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust
Arms of the Study
Arm 1
Arm 2
Experimental
Active Comparator
Fully Covered Metallic Stent
Plastic Stent
Among patients randomized to the covered, self-expandable metallic stent (cSEMS) group, the endoscopist will deploy a cSEMS of sufficient length to traverse the papilla. Dilation will not be performed unless the cSEMS deployment catheter cannot be advanced over a guidewire beyond the stricture. A biliary sphincterotomy may be performed at the discretion of the treating endoscopist.
Patients randomized to the plastic stent (PS) group will be treated using a standard algorithm. Specifically, the stricture will be dilated using a passage dilator and/or dilation balloon catheter, and multiple (as many as technically feasible) PS will be deployed depending on the baseline characteristics of the stricture as well as the diameter of the proximal and distal bile duct (standard of care). The endoscopist will sequentially dilate and upsize the cumulative stent diameter on ensuing endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP), until the stricture has been obliterated using clinical and fluoroscopic criteria (details below).