Meta-Analysis of the Long Term Success Rate of Different Interventions in Benign Biliary Strictures

Benign biliary stricture is a rare condition and the majority of the cases are caused by operative trauma or chronic inflammation based on various etiology. Although the initial results of endoscopic, percutaneous and surgical treatment are impressive, no comparison about long term stricture resolution is available.

The goal of this study was to compare the long term disease free survival in benign biliary strictures with various etiology after surgery, percutaneous transhepatic-and endoscopic treatment.

PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library were searched by computer and manually for published studies. The investigators selected the publications according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, processed the data and assessed the quality of the selected studies. Meta-analysis of data of 24 publications was performed to compare long term disease free survival of different treatment groups.

Compared the subgroups surgery resulted in the highest long term stricture resolution rate, followed by the percutaneous transhepatic treatment, the multiple plastic stent insertion and covered self-expanding metal stents (SEMS), however the difference was not significant. All compared methods are significantly superior to the single plastic stent placement. Long term stricture resolution rate irrespectively of any therapy is still not more than 84%.

In summary, the use of single plastic stent is not recommended. Further randomized studies and innovative technical development are required for improving the treatment of benign biliary strictures.