Current role of interventional radiology of the bile ducts

Interventional Biliary Radiology, born from the development of the instrumental procedures linked to transhepatic cholangiography, plays a leading role in the management of patients with obstructive jaundice. In fact it includes several diagnostic tools, such as cytological examination of the bile, transhepatic brushing and biopsy, percutaneous cholangioscopy, manometric and perfusional biliary studies, which are extremely successful in the diagnosis of nature of the obstructive lesions. On the other hand it includes some therapeutical procedures, deriving from angiographic techniques, which allow the placement of drainage catheters into the biliary tree. These drainage systems, used to decompress the bile ducts, are the external drainage catheter, which divert the bile out of the organism; the external-internal drainage catheter, which restores the physiological biliary flow; the endoprosthesis, a cylindric tube, with sideholes, pushed into the obstructive lesion. All these devices may have a preoperative or definitive-palliative finality.