title: Non-surgical biliary drainage: endoscopic conversion of percutaneous transhepatic into endoprosthetic drainage.
abstract: Percutaneous transhepatic drainage (PTD) is associated with many long-term complications. Therefore a large-diameter endoscopic endoprosthesis is preferentially employed to bridge a malignant obstruction of the biliary tract. Only if the placement of an endoprosthesis fails, must PTD be established. We present a simple method for converting PTD into a large endoprosthesis (14 F) with the aid of endoscopy. We have performed this conversion successfully in 8 patients without complications.
mesh_terms: D001661:Biliary Tract Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy*; D004322:Drainage / Q000379:methods*; D004724:Endoscopy; D006801:Humans