Percutaneous antegrade biliary drainage: a nonoperative approach to biliary obstruction

Twenty-seven patients underwent percutaneous antegrade biliary drainage for obstructive jaundice. The serum bilirubin levels was elevated in all patients. Generalized pruritus was a major complaint. Twenty of the patients had had a laparotomy for malignant disease. Of the 24 patients in whom this method of drainage was successful, the obstructing lesion was found at the porta hepatis in 12 and in the extrahepatic bile ducts in 12. Metastatic disease was the commonest cause of obstruction. Following drainage the serum bilirubin level fell from a mean of 21.4 mg/dl (366 mumol/l) to a mean of 4.1 mg/dl (70.1 mumol/l) within a week. Pruritus was relieved. The major complications were transient cholangitis in five patients and inadvertent dislodgement of the catheter in four. In three of these patients another catheter was reinserted with ease. There was no peritonitis or uncontrolled bleeding. Twenty-one patients were able to leave hospital. Their mean survival time was 7.3 months. A multiperforated catheter manipulated through the obstruction has the advantage of permitting bile flow into the duodenum (antegrade) in contrast to external drainage (retrograde) by T- or U-tubes. Although the mean survival time with this method is similar to that with insertion of drainage tubes at the time of laparotomy, morbidity and mortality are reduced; this is important in view of the poor prognosis of bile duct obstruction due to malignant disease.