Outcomes of bile duct cannulation using a novel contrast-enhanced catheter: A single-center, retrospective cohort...

Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography is a challenging procedure involving bile duct cannulation. Despite the development of several cannulation devices, none have effectively facilitated the procedure.

To evaluate the efficacy of a recently developed catheter for bile duct cannulation.

We retrospectively examined 342 patients who underwent initial cholangiopancreatography. We compared the success rate of bile duct cannulation and the incidence of complications between the groups using existing and novel catheters.

The overall success rates of bile duct cannulation were 98.3% and 99.1% in the existing and novel catheter groups, respectively (P = 0.47). The bile duct cannulation rate using the standard technique was 73.0% and 82.1% in the existing and novel catheter groups, respectively (P = 0.042). Furthermore, when catheterization was performed by expert physicians, the bile duct cannulation rate was significantly higher in the novel catheter group (81.3%) than in the existing catheter group (65.2%) (P = 0.017). The incidence of difficult cannulation was also significantly lower in the novel catheter group (17.4%) than in the existing catheter group (33.0%) (P = 0.019).

The novel catheter improved the bile duct cannulation rate using the standard technique and reduced the frequency of difficult cannulation cases, valuable tool in endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography procedures performed by experts.