Role of percutaneous intracorporeal electrohydraulic lithotripsy in the treatment of biliary tract calculi. Work in progress.

Although surgery is the treatment of choice for symptomatic gallstones, most bile duct calculi can be successfully treated with the use of routine percutaneous or endoscopic methods. Failure of these methods is most often associated with stones larger than 1.5 cm. The authors used percutaneous intracorporeal electrohydraulic lithotripsy (EHL) to treat 11 patients with calculi in the bile ducts (n = 10) or gallbladder (n = 1) in whom the use of other percutaneous or endoscopic methods failed. The stones in all 11 patients were successfully fragmented and removed. There were no complications. Intracorporeal EHL is an effective alternative therapy for the treatment of biliary tract calculi when standard methods fail.