[Intraoperative ultrasonic scanning of extrahepatic bile ducts]

The intraoperative ultrasonic investigation (IOUSI) of bile tracts was used during laparoscopic cholecystectomy for chronic (53 patients) and acute (25 patients) calculous cholecystitis and during 74 open operations in patients with mechanical jaundice. In half of the cases IOUSI was combined with intraoperative cholangiography (IOCG). A conclusion made on the basis of the clinical material suggests that IOUSI allows better assessment than IOCG of the state of the bile duct walls and pancreas head, the consistency of the duct content and can detect small (2-5 mm) concrements more exactly. However IOCG is more effective in determining the function of the bile tracts. So, the methods are thought to be not competing but mutually supplementing.