[Early diagnosis of hepatic duct carcinoma]

8 patients with carcinoma of the hepatic duct are presented. Despite symptoms during the long anicteric period (2-13 months, x 15 months) the diagnosis was never established until the patients became jaundiced. Early in the course of the diseases all of them reported upper abdominal pain and intermittend diarrhea, and the test for occult blood in the stool was positive. Initially there may be no biochemical evidence of cholestasis. Liver biopsy may at an early stage reveal pseudoxanthoma cells as an index of long-lived, local mechanical cholestasis.