Stricture of the common bile duct from chronic pancreatitis.

Early diagnosis and treatment of stricture of the common bile duct from chronic pancreatitis are essential as the life-threatening complications of biliary cirrhosis and acute cholangitis can occur even in the absence of clinical jaundice. In a series of 40 patients with longstanding chronic pancreatitis and stricture of the common bile duct, findings included chronic pain in 26 patients, jaundice in 17 patients, secondary biliary cirrhosis in six patients and acute cholangitis in six patients. Persistent elevation of the alkaline phosphatase level was the most sensitive laboratory indicator of occult obstruction of the biliary tract. The diagnostic long tapered stenosis of the distal common bile duct was delineated by percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography in 21 of 22 patients and endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography in eight of 11 patients. Operative decompression of the biliary tract included 32 biliary-enteric bypasses, three sphincteroplasty procedures and three emergency tube drainages. There was one postoperative death and seven other patients had postoperative complications. Sphincteroplasty failed to relieve the obstruction in two patients and two patients with biliary-enteric bypass had late anastomotic strictures develop which required reoperation. Only seven patients were free of pain at follow-up study which ranged from 0.5 to 15.0 years. Clinical suspicion based upon persistent hyperaklalinphosphatemia, diagnosis by cholangiography and decompression of the biliary tract by choledochoenterostomy can reliably avert the lethal complications of stricture of the common bile duct caused by chronic pancreatitis.