Percutaneous biliary drainage in acute suppurative cholangitis with biliary sepsis

Acute suppurative cholangitis is a severe inflammatory process of the bile duct occurred as result of partial or complete obstruction of the bile duct, and may manifest clinically severe form of disease, rapidly deteriorating to life-threatening condition. We analyzed emergency percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage in 20 patients of acute suppurative cholangitis with biliary sepsis to evaluate the therapeutic effect and complication of the procedure. The underlying cause were 12 benign disease(stones) and eight malignant tumors and among eight malignant tumors, bile duct stones(n=4) and clonorchiasis(n=1) were combined. Percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage was performed successfully in 17 of 20 patients resulting in improvement of general condition and failed in three patients. The procedure were preterminated due to the patient's condition in two and biliary-proto fistula was developed in one. After biliary decompression by percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage, effective and successful elective surgery was performed in nine cases, which were seven biliary stones and two biliary cancer with stones. Our experience suggest that emergency percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage is an initial and effective treatment of choice for acute suppurative cholangitis with sepsis and a safe alternative for nonsurgical treatment