Patients with bulbar papilla and choledocholithiasis and their endoscopic management

This study presents the endoscopic management of twenty-one patients with biliary stones, deformity at the duodenal bulb, and a flat shaped papilla ectopically located at duodenal bulb.

Most of the patients were male with a mean age of 53.9 +/- 9.6 years. In four (19%) of the 21 patients stenotic parts in the bulbus were dilated with TTS balloons, thus allowing ectopic papillae to be reached in all of the cases. Papillary orifice and distal CBD were dilated with balloons from 4 mm diameter and increasing the diameter of the balloons stepwise to 6 to 15 mm.

In 20 (95%) the patients, the stones could be extracted in either the first or subsequent endoscopy session as the cholangiography. In one patient, retroperitoneal perforation in the intrapancreatic segment of the CBD occured after dilatation of CBD with a 15 mm balloon, and an operation was necessary.

The shared features which may constitute a unique clinical entity of the presented cases are 1) male gender, 2) bulbar papilla, 3) flat appearance of the major papilla endoscopically 4) deformed bulbus, and 5) presence of stones in the CBD. Bile duct stones can be treated with endoscopic balloon dilatation of the distal CBD and papilla.