[Immediate and long-term effects of endoscopic papillosphincterotomy in patients with cholelithiasis]

The subjects of the study were 164 patients, divided into two groups. Group I included 76 patients at the physicochemical stage of cholelithiasis, and 38 patients after cholecystectomy, who underwent endoscopic papillosphincterotomy (EPST). Group II (control) included 30 patients at the physicochemical stage of cholelithiasis, and 20 patients after cholecystectomy, who did not undergo EPST. Endoscopic retrograde pancreatocholangiography revealed type II Oddi's sphincter dysfunction in all the patients. Evaluation of the chemical composition of bile in Group I, performed 6, 12, 18, and 24 months after EPST, revealed its graduate stabilization. In Group II the dynamics of bile composition was negative--in 8 patients bile became more lithogenic. Long-term observations showed that 6 years after EPST bile was lithogenic only in 4 Group I patients, while at the same moment in 25 Group I patients bile lithogenicity did not disappear, but even worsened. Biliferous tract ultrasonography, performed long after EPST, found biliary sludge in 4 Group I patients. 6-year observation of Group Il patients, including ultrasonography, demonstrated that during the 4th year of observation biliary sludge occurred in as many as 28 patients, in 15 of whom small concrements on the bottom of the gall bladder were found during the 5-6th year of observation, and in 3 of whom a solitary concrement of 4 to 5 mm in diameter was found in the choledoch. The results demonstrate that it is appropriate to perform EPST as early as at the physicochemical stage of cholelithiasis, because this procedure results in stabilization of biliary colloid balance and thus prevents biliary sludge and forming of gall bladder concrements. At the same time, 36% of patients with cholelithiasis at various stages who did not undergo EPST, formed gall bladder concrements. EPST is also appropriate in some patients after cholecystectomy, in order to prevent repeating gall bladder concrement formation.