Intrahepatic bile ducts in biliary atresia--a possible factor determining the prognosis.

Intrahepatic bile ducts were investigated by operative cholangiography in 6 patients with the correctable type of biliary atresia, by percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography in 5 patients with noncorrectable type and by electron microscopy in biopsied hepatic tissues in 17 patients. Intrahepatic bile ducts were pathologic even in the early stage of the disease and they were involved all the way from bile ductules to large main hepatic ducts. The correlation between the prognosis and the electron microscopic presence of lumenal obstruction suggests that the pathologic change of intrahepatic bile ducts is one of the main factors determining prognosis.