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Updated: Feb 15, 2026

Laparoscopic Common Bile Duct Exploration in Patients with a Previous History of Biliary Tract Surgery
Published on: February 10, 2023
Laparoscopic Hilar Lymph Node Sampling in Patients With Biliary Tract Cancers That are Rarely Associated With Nodal
Shogo Kobayashi1,2,3, Akira Tomokuni1,2, Hidenori Takahashi1,2
1Department of Surgery, Osaka Medical Center for Cancer and Cardiovascular Diseases.
Purpose:
Among the various types of biliary tract cancer, patients with single, small (<5 cm), peripheral intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC), or small (<2 cm) gallbladder tumors (GBTs) rarely develop lymph node (LN) metastasis. We investigated a laparoscopic approach for hilar LN sampling in such cases.
Methods:
Among the 176 patients with biliary tract cancer who were treated from January 2012 to March 2017, 21 (ICC, n=4; GBT, n=17) met the above indications.
Results:
All patients were treated by a laparoscopic approach with R0 resection. After determining the pathologic diagnosis, 9 patients with GBT and all 4 patients with ICC underwent laparoscopic LN sampling; the mean numbers of sampled LNs were 2.6 and 7.3, respectively; no patients had metastasis. The mean operating times for GBT and ICC were 223 and 379 minutes, respectively; the mean blood loss was 23 mL and 171 mL. With the exception of 1 patient who developed intrahepatic metastasis of ICC at the opposite liver lobe, all of the patients were recurrence free.
Conclusions:
A laparoscopic approach could be safely applied under our indications.
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