A reevaluation of 202 patients after surgical removal of intrahepatic stones: with special emphasis on intrahepatic biliary stricture

Intrahepatic stones are one of the most distressing problems of biliary diseases in the Orient. Surgical treatment, though greatly advanced over the last ten years, still poses a relatively high incidence of residual and recurrent stones. There were 258 patients treated by surgery for intrahepatic stones over a seven-year period at Yuan General Hospital in Taiwan. Among them, 202 patients (78.3%) were adequately followed up. The patients included 82 men and 120 women with a mean age of 40.5 years. There were 111 cases (55.0%) involving only the left side, 37 cases (18.3%) involving only the right side and 54 cases (26.7%) involving both hepatic biliary trees. Hepatic resection, either segmentectomy or lobectomy (37 cases, 18.3%) and extended choledocholithotomy with or without drainage procedures (165 cases, 81.7%) were the surgical procedures carried out in these patients. Treatment failure was defined by the existence of stones, residual or recurrent in the bile ducts. The failure rate of extended choledocholithotomy (32/165, 23.6%) was higher than that of hepatic resection (3/37, 8.1%) although the difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.06). The addition of various drainage procedures did not appear to affect the outcome of extended choledocholithotomy (p = 0.23). A significant number of patients had intrahepatic strictures in the biliary tracts. (62 cases, 30.7%). The overall treatment failure rate in patients with intrahepatic biliary stricture was significantly higher (28/62, 45.2%, p = 0.001) than those without stricture (14/100, 14%). However, hepatic resection was associated with a significantly lower failure rate than other treatment modalities (p less than 0.001).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)