BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Hepatobiliarypancreatic tuberculosis (HBPTB) is a less common form of tuberculosis that often presents as malignancy or lithiasis. Advances in diagnostics and minimally invasive procedures have led to the detection of more patients with milder forms of TB requiring surgical management. Due to the low incidence rates and lack of standardized approaches, additional studies are needed to improve patient outcomes. This study examined the risk factors, diagnostic methods, and treatments for HBPTB patients at the University of the Philippines – Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH) from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2021.

This retrospective descriptive study utilized our institutional database to identify patients who underwent a surgical procedure for HBPTB and their associated risk factors. Inclusion criteria required biopsy or microbiologic proof of tuberculous involvement of the biliary tract or nearby structures.

Among a total of 45 patients, the most common admitting diagnosis were HBP tuberculosis (37.8%) and malignancy (35.6%). 47.6% of patients had a previous or concurrent TB exposure. Sixty percent had subclinical malnutrition indicated by normal weight and low albumin. The liver (37.8%) and the bile ducts (33.3%) were the most common organs involved. The most common surgical procedures done were ultrasound-guided liver biopsy, biliary enteric anastomosis, percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage (PTBD), and endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography with or without stenting (ERCP).

This study provides additional data for clinicians to tailor diagnostic and treatment plans accordingly. Striking a balance between surgical procedures and appropriate anti-tuberculous therapy (ATT) is essential for successful treatment. Local data can be useful to help identify tuberculosis patterns unique to Filipinos and highlight socio-economic factors contributing to this rare presentation of TB.

Biliary Tract Diseases ; Humans ; Liver Diseases ; Liver Transplantation/adverse effects* ; Postoperative Complications/etiology* ; Retrospective Studies

To investigate the effect of controlled hypotension by urapidil on the predictive accuracy and diagnostic threshold of stroke volume variation (SVV) in hypertensive and non-hypertensive patients undergoing robotic hepatobiliary surgery.
 Methods: Eighty patients undergoing robotic hepatobiliary surgery under general anesthesia were divided into a hypertension group (n=25) and a non-hypertension group (n=38) according to whether or not essential hypertension was present (excluding some cases that didn't meet requirements). The pump speed was at 6.0-7.0 µg/(kg﹒min), and the range of hypotension was between 10%≤Δ systolic blood pressure (SAP)≤20%. Volume loading test was performed after artificial pneumoperitoneum was established in reverse-Trendelenburg position. Hemodynamic indexes including heart rate (HR), SAP, cardiac output (CO), cardiac index (CI), stroke volume (SV), stroke volume index (SVI) and SVV were recorded before and after infusion. Then the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves of SVV was drawn to determine the accuracy and diagnosis of SVV in predicting volume status in hypertensive and non-hypertensive patients after anti-Trendelenburg posture and pneumoperitoneum.
 Results: In the patients with controlled hypotension by urapidil, the area under the ROC curve of SVV in the hypertension group was 0.974, the diagnostic threshold was 13.5%, the ROC curve of SVV in the non-hypertension group was 0.832, and the diagnostic threshold was 15.5%.
 Conclusion: SVV can accurately predict the volume status in the hypertension group and the non-hypertension group after controlled hypotension in the anti-Trendelenburg position and fixed pneumoperitoneal pressure, and the SVV diagnostic threshold in the non-hypertensive group is higher than that in the hypertensive group.
Biliary Tract Diseases ; surgery ; Blood Pressure ; Cardiac Output ; Fluid Therapy ; Hemodynamics ; Humans ; Hypotension, Controlled ; Liver Diseases ; surgery ; ROC Curve ; Robotic Surgical Procedures ; Stroke ; Stroke Volume

OBJECTIVE: To find the pathogenies and risk factors related to surgical intensive care unit (SICU) readmission for patients who underwent hepatobiliary-pancreatic surgery, and to develop a predictive model for determining patients who are likely to be readmitted to SICU. METHODS: The patients who admitted to SICU of the Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University from January 2013 to August 2018; who first stayed in SICU after hepatobiliary-pancreatic surgery; who were assessed and discharged from SICU by surgeons and SICU physicians after treatment, and then transferred to SICU again because of the change of their condition were enrolled. The unintended return to SICU within 3 days and 7 days were recorded. Patients who returned to SICU within 7 days were studied for the pathogenies, risk factors and predictive model of returning to SICU, and non-returning patients were enrolled according to 1:1 as the controls. A total of 43 indicators were divided into five categories, including general clinical data, medical history, surgical indicators before first admission of SICU, length of first SICU stay, and other indicators on the day of first discharge from the SICU. Logistic regression was used to screen the risk factors associated with SICU readmission, then the Nomogram diagram was drawn by using the R 3.4.1 software for predicting SICU readmission, and the classification performance of Nomogram was evaluated by self-help sampling test. RESULTS: Of the 763 patients discharged from the SICU, 2.10% (16/763) of them were readmitted within 3 days and 3.28% (25/763) were readmitted within 7 days to the SICU unexpectedly. The pathogenies of SICU readmission within 7 days included infection [56.00% (14/25)], heart failure [16.00% (4/25)], infarction [12.00% (3/25)], bleeding [12.00% (3/25)], and sutures splitting [4.00% (1/25)]. The pathogenies of SICU readmission within 3 days included infection [56.25% (9/16)], heart failure [18.75% (3/16)], infarction [12.50% (2/16)], and bleeding [12.50% (2/16)]. Nomogram analysis showed that the risk factors associated with unplanned SICU readmission were length of first SICU stay, history of hypertension, and activity of daily living (ADL) score, white blood cell count (WBC), arterial partial pressure of oxygen (PaO₂), prothrombin time (PT), fibrinogen (FIB) on the day of first SICU discharge. Self-help sampling test was carried out on the Nomogram map, and the results showed that the coherence index (C-index) was 0.962 [95% confidence interval (95%CI) = 0.869-1.057]. The classification performance of the model was good. CONCLUSIONS The common pathogenies of SICU readmission for patients who underwent hepatobiliary-pancreatic surgery were infection, heart failure, infarction and bleeding. Risk factors of readmission after SICU discharge included the length of first SICU stay, history of hypertension, and ADL score, WBC, PaO₂, PT, FIB on the day of first SICU discharge. The model consisted of above risk factors showed a good performance in predicting the probability of readmission after SICU discharge for patients who underwent hepatobiliary-pancreatic surgery.
Biliary Tract Diseases/surgery* ; Digestive System Surgical Procedures/adverse effects* ; Humans ; Intensive Care Units ; Liver Diseases/surgery* ; Models, Statistical ; Pancreatic Diseases/surgery* ; Patient Readmission/statistics & numerical data* ; Postoperative Complications/therapy* ; Risk Factors

The feasibility of using computed tomography (CT) to identify the common bile duct (CBD) and comparison with ultrasonography (US) results were evaluated in normal beagle dogs and dogs without hepatobiliary and pancreatic diseases. In addition, CBD diameters were obtained from CT at the level of the porta hepatis and the duodenal papilla level in dogs with underlying diseases that may cause cholestasis. US is a useful modality in the estimation of gallbladder volume because ejection fraction and CBD diameter from US were not significantly different from those of CT. The normal biliary tract was visible on CT images in 68% of the normal dog group. CBD diameter was not over 3 mm and 3.5 mm at the porta hepatis and duodenal papilla levels, respectively in normal dogs weighing less than 15 kg. Dogs suspected to have cholestasis associated with hepatobiliary or pancreatic diseases had significantly larger CBD than that in normal dogs.
Animals ; Biliary Tract ; Cholestasis ; Common Bile Duct ; Dogs ; Gallbladder ; Pancreatic Diseases ; Ultrasonography

Aged ; Biliary Tract Diseases ; surgery ; China ; Humans

Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is an aggressive cancer arising from epithelial cells of the bile duct. Most patients with CCA have an unresectable tumor at the time of diagnosis. In Western countries, the risk of CCA increases in patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis, whereas liver fluke infection appears to be the major risk factor for CCA in Asian countries. A diagnosis of liver fluke infection often relies on stool samples, including microscopic examination, polymerase chain reaction-based assays, and fluke antigen detection. Tests of serum, saliva and urine samples are also potentially diagnostic. The presence of liver fluke along with exogenous carcinogens magnifies the risk of CCA in people living in endemic areas. The “liver fluke-cholangiocarcinoma” carcinogenesis pathways consist of mechanical damage to the bile duct epithelium, immunopathologic and cellular reactions to the liver fluke's antigens and excretory/secretory products, liver fluke-induced changes in the biliary tract microbiome and the effects of repeated treatment for liver fluke. A vaccine and novel biomarkers are needed for the primary and secondary prevention of CCA in endemic areas. Importantly, climate change exerts an effect on vector-borne parasitic diseases, and awareness of liver fluke should be enhanced in potentially migrated habitat areas.
Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Bile Ducts ; Biliary Tract Neoplasms* ; Biliary Tract* ; Biomarkers ; Carcinogenesis ; Carcinogens ; Cholangiocarcinoma ; Cholangitis, Sclerosing ; Climate Change ; Clonorchiasis ; Diagnosis ; Ecosystem ; Epithelial Cells ; Epithelium ; Fasciola hepatica ; Humans ; Liver* ; Microbiota ; Opisthorchiasis ; Parasitic Diseases ; Risk Factors ; Saliva ; Secondary Prevention ; Trematoda

PURPOSE: Although gemcitabine plus cisplatin has been established as the standard first-line chemotherapy for patients with advanced biliary tract cancer (BTC), overall prognosis remains poor. We investigated the efficacy of a novel triplet combination of oxaliplatin, irinotecan, and S-1 (OIS) for advanced BTC. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Chemotherapy-naive patientswith histologically documented unresectable or metastatic BTC were eligible for this multicenter, single-arm phase II study. Patients received 65 mg/m2 oxaliplatin (day 1), 135 mg/m2 irinotecan (day 1), and 40 mg/m2 S-1 (twice a day, days 1-7) every 2 weeks. Primary endpoint was objective response rate. Targeted exome sequencing for biomarker analysis was performed using archival tissue. RESULTS: In total, 32 patients were enrolled between October 2015 and June 2016. Median age was 64 years (range, 40 to 76 years), with 24 (75%) male patients; 97% patients had metastatic or recurrent disease. Response rate was 50%, and median progression-free survival and overall survival (OS) were 6.8 months (95% confidence interval [CI], 4.8 to 8.8) and 12.5 months (95% CI, 7.0 to 18.0), respectively. The most common grade 3-4 adverse events were neutropenia (32%), diarrhea (6%), and peripheral neuropathy (6%). TP53 and KRAS mutations were the most frequent genomic alterations (42% and 32%, respectively), and KRAS mutations showed a marginal relationship with worse OS (p=0.07). CONCLUSION: OIS combination chemotherapy was feasible and associated with favorable efficacy outcomes as a first-line treatment in patients with advanced BTC. Randomized studies are needed to compare OIS with gemcitabine plus cisplatin.
Biliary Tract Neoplasms* ; Biliary Tract* ; Cholangiocarcinoma ; Cisplatin ; Diarrhea ; Disease-Free Survival ; Drug Therapy ; Drug Therapy, Combination ; Exome ; Humans ; Male ; Neutropenia ; Peripheral Nervous System Diseases ; Prognosis ; Triplets

Functional dyspepsia is a very common disease and there are two types of dyspepsia. One is functional dyspepsia in the gastrointestinal tract and the other is pancreatobiliary dyspepsia. Biliary dyspepsia is caused by biliary tract disease and can even cause biliary pain. Acalculous biliary pain (ABP) is biliary colic without gallstones, it is caused by functional biliary disorder or structural disorders such as microlithiasis, sludges or parasitic infestation like Clonorchiasis. The endoscopic ultrasonography is helpful tool for differential diagnosis of ABP. Although sphincter of Oddi manometry (SOM) is performed for the confirmative diagnosis of sphincter of Oddi dysfunction (SOD), several non-invasive tests have been studied because of some practical limitations and invasiveness of SOM itself. In fact, the most clinically used easy test to diagnose functional biliary disorder is quantitative hepatobiliary scintigraphy and it can distinguish gallbladder dyskinesia, SOD, or combined type. Initial treatment of functional biliary disorder is adequate dietary control and medication, but if the symptoms worsened or recurred frequently, laparoscopic cholecystectomy could be performed with gallbladder dyskinesia. If SOD is suspected, additional SOM should be considered and endoscopic sphincterotomy (EST) can be done according to the outcome. If the SOM is not available, the patient could be diagnosed by stimulated ultrasound.
Biliary Dyskinesia ; Biliary Tract Diseases ; Cholecystectomy, Laparoscopic ; Clonorchiasis ; Colic ; Diagnosis ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Dyspepsia* ; Endosonography ; Gallstones ; Gastrointestinal Tract ; Humans ; Manometry ; Radionuclide Imaging ; Sphincter of Oddi ; Sphincter of Oddi Dysfunction ; Sphincterotomy, Endoscopic ; Ultrasonography

Recent advances in cholangiopancreatoscopy technology permit image-enhanced endoscopy (IEE) for pancreatobiliary diseases. There are limitations in endoscopy performance and in the study of the clinical role of IEE in bile duct or pancreatic duct diseases. However, currently available IEEs during cholangiopancreatoscopy including traditional dye-aided chromoendoscopy, autofluorescence imaging, narrow-band imaging, and i-Scan have been evaluated and reported previously. Although the clinical role of IEE in pancreatobiliary diseases should be verified in future studies, IEE is a useful promising tool in the evaluation of bile duct or pancreatic duct mucosal lesions.
Bile Ducts ; Biliary Tract Diseases ; Digestive System ; Endoscopy* ; Optical Imaging ; Pancreatic Ducts