Palliative transhepatic biliary drainage and enteral nutrition

Simultaneous intestinal and biliary obstruction is a rare but agonizing complication of metastatic abdominal cancer. Although endoscopic procedures exist that relieve jaundice or restore enteral nutrition, they can be impossible to perform for technical or anatomical reasons. We propose a palliative approach for these patients that includes transcutaneous common bile duct drainage, progressive dilation of the transhepatic channel over 1 wk, and, finally, insertion of a permanent silicon catheter that drains bile into the duodenum and is combined with an enteral feeding line. We report three patients whose metastatic abdominal tumors had led to simultaneous jaundice and gastric outlet obstruction, neither of which could be treated endoscopically. In all patients, the transcutaneous bile drainage catheter combined with the enteral feeding line was inserted and tumor symptoms resolved rapidly. As a result, the patients chose to return to home care with enteral nutrition and pain medication. The creation of a transhepatic access for simultaneous enteral bile drainage and nutrition is a technically simple procedure that causes little discomfort to a terminally ill patient. It relieves the symptoms of tumor obstruction, and the option of enteral nutrition and medication can obviate the need for intravenous infusions.