[Surgical palliative procedures in patients with carcinoma of the biliary tract (author's transl)]

A report is given of 72 patients suffering from carcinoma of the extrahepatic biliary ducts. Carcinoma of the gallbladder usually grow fast invading the surrounding tissue. Thus cholecystectomy can be performed only as a pallouative procedure in most cases, and partial resection of the liver does not yield better results in general. Carcinoma of the ductus hepaticus usually grows slowly and metastases are formed lately in the course; thus patients usually die due to occlusion of the ducts and jaundice rather than due to the malignancy as such. In these cases good drainage of the bile is essential, in an early stage this can be achieved by placing a tube across the tumor, in later stages an intrahepatic cholangiojejunostomy is to be performed. The technique of this procedure and results obtained in 10 cases are reported.