Active clinical trials for "Cholestasis, Extrahepatic"

Biliary stricture is a common complication after end-to-end biliary anastomosis, especially after liver transplantation. This study is designed to investigate the safety and efficacy of magnetic recanalization technique, a newly clinical method, for treating biliary anastomotic stricture.

Prospective multi-site study of ultrasound-guided percutaneous biliary drainage and endoscopic ultrasound-guided biliary drainage with implantation of a self-expanding metal stent in patients with malignant, distal bile duct obstruction (PUMa-study)

The sensitivity of brushing cytology used to distinguish the cause of biliary strictures is low and clinical usefulness is not secured. The aim of this study was to validate the clinical usefulness of a new differential staining method for cytology which is difficult to differentiate by the conventional staining method using biliary cancer-related protein expressed only in bile duct cancer.

The clinical success of percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage procedures (PTBDs) is usually measured by the the decrease of the serum bilirubin value. However, the bilirubin value can be biased by other disease conditions. Furthermore, the time course of the decrease of the bilirubin value after technically successful PTBD is not well known. Serum gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT), a liver enzyme which is typically elevated in cholestatic liver diseases, might be a good alternative to bilirubin as an indicator for the clinical success of PTBDs. The aim of this study is to analyse the bilirubin level and the GGT level in patients with technically successful PTBD.

The aim of this study is to determine whether administration of aspirin can help maintain the patency of metallic stents for distal malignant common bile duct obstruction. Metal stents are mainly used for malignant biliary obstruction if the surgical treatment is not considered and its maintenance period has been reported to be about 8 months. This study will be prospectively conducted as a randomized controlled study with aspirin treated patients who received metal stents in patients over 20 years who were confirmed malignant distal biliary obstruction. The primary endpoint is the incidence of stent dysfunction in both groups for 6 months after the procedure. The secondary endpoints included duration of metallic stent patency, incidence of further procedures, and adverse events related with aspirin.

Although endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) is almost always successful in patients with malignant biliary obstruction, selective biliary cannulation fails in some cases and conventional ERCP may not be possible in patients with tumor invasion of the duodenum or major papilla, surgically altered anatomy (e.g., Roux-en-Y anastomosis), or complex hilar biliary strictures. In such cases, percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage (PTBD) is an useful alternative. However, PTBD had various complications and the presence of an external drainage catheter would also have a cosmetic problem related to the external drainage and an adverse impact on quality of life (QOL) of terminally ill patients. Since endoscopic ultrasound-guided bile duct puncture was described in 1996, sporadic case reports of EUS-guided biliary drainage (EUS-BD) suggested that it was a feasible and effective alternative in patients with failed conventional ERCP stenting. The potential benefits of EUS-BD include one-stage procedure in ERCP unit, and internal drainage for avoiding long-term external drainage in cases where external PTBD drainage catheters cannot be internalized, thus significantly improving the QOL of terminally ill patients, and possibly lower morbidity than PTBD or surgery. Up to date, only a few case series of EUS-BD with small numbers of patients have been published, and known the feasibility and safety in terms of the incidence of procedure-related clinical outcomes.

The overall objective of this study is to assess the functionality of the WallFlex™ Biliary Fully-covered stent as a palliative treatment for malignant bile duct obstruction.

Although ERCP is almost always successful in patients with malignant biliary obstruction, selective biliary cannulation fails in some cases and conventional ERCP may not be possible in patients with tumor invasion of the duodenum or major papilla, surgically altered anatomy (e.g., Roux-en-Y anastomosis), or complex hilar biliary strictures. In such cases, percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage (PTBD) is an useful alternative. However, PTBD had various complications and the presence of an external drainage catheter would also have a cosmetic problem related to the external drainage and an adverse impact on quality of life (QOL) of terminally ill patients. Since endoscopic ultrasound-guided bile duct puncture was described in 1996, sporadic case reports of EUS-guided biliary drainage (EUS-BD) suggested that it was a feasible and effective alternative in patients with failed conventional ERCP stenting. The potential benefits of EUS-BD include one-stage procedure in ERCP unit, and internal drainage for avoiding long-term external drainage in cases where external PTBD drainage catheters cannot be internalized, thus significantly improving the QOL of terminally ill patients, and possibly lower morbidity than PTBD or surgery. Up to date, only a few case series of EUS-BD with small numbers of patients have been published, and known the feasibility and safety in terms of the incidence of procedure-related clinical outcomes.10-21 There has been no comparative study between the outcomes of PTBD and EUS-BD focusing on the QOL, cost-effectiveness, and complications. The researchers investigated the technical success of EUS-BD and PTBD in patients with malignant biliary obstruction after failed conventional ERCP as a prospective randomized comparative study in multicenters. Secondary endpoints were the cost-effectiveness and complications rates between EUS-BD and PTBD.

The aim is to compare percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage (PTBD) with primary metal stent implantation (one stage-procedure) with PTBD with secondary metal stent implantation in terms of adverse events.

Cannulation of (placement of a small catheter into) the bile duct is critical to remove bile duct stones, divert bile leaks, and decompress biliary obstruction due to cancer. Given the small size of the bile duct orifice and its close proximity to the pancreatic duct, selective biliary cannulation is the most difficult part of the endoscopic retrograde cholangiography (ERCP). New small diameter sphincteromes and "short wire" systems (which allow physicians to control guidewires) offer potential, though untested advantages. At most hosptial both the long and short wire systems as well as small versus standard are routinely used for clinical care. Our hypothesis is that small diameter, physician controlled wires favor biliary cannulation Our objective will be to assess whether small diameter sphincterotomes and "short wire" physician controlled guidewire cannulation favors successful bile duct cannulation and minimize complications.