Choledocholithiasis eliminates the pain of open surgery

The 80-year-old grandmother Huang had a cholecystectomy 20 years ago because of gallstones, and more than 2 years ago she was found to have several bile duct stones and repeatedly had distension and discomfort in the upper and middle abdomen after eating. Doctors recommended surgery, and Mrs. Huang, who is in her eighties, was worried about this. She was told that she could get out of bed and eat the next day after surgery, and that it would have less impact on her body compared with traditional surgery. A one-stage anastomosis was performed to avoid the painful placement of a T-tube during traditional surgery. The old lady was successfully discharged from the hospital four days later. The surgery was performed with only four small holes in the abdomen, which is less than the traditional open surgery with more than 20 cm long scars, less invasive, less painful, faster post-operative recovery and high patient tolerance, which brings a new change for patients with common bile duct stones. Mr. Li from Wenzhou had a similar experience. He had two surgeries on his stomach in the past ten years, and recently he had two recurrent gallbladder stones combined with bile duct stones, and two stones of 1.5cm in the dilated common bile duct, and the local doctor suggested open surgery to remove the gallbladder and bile duct exploration to retrieve the stones. After checking the abdominal incision and MRCP, Prof. Yin suggested laparoscopic surgery, and after separating the abdominal adhesions, the patient was discharged from the hospital on the fourth day, avoiding the pain of placing T-tubes after conventional surgery. Biliary stones are a common disease in China, and with the improvement of people’s living standard and nutritional status, the incidence of cholelithiasis has been increasing year by year, and the incidence of gallbladder stones in adults in China is close to 10%, of which about 15% are combined with bile duct stones, and bile duct stones and easy to cause cholangitis, pancreatitis, etc., which need timely treatment. With the rapid development of endoscopic and laparoscopic minimally invasive technology, open choledochotomy for stone extraction is gradually replaced by laparoscopic surgery and ERCP, and minimally invasive treatment of common bile duct stones has become the mainstream and trend. Previously, it was considered inappropriate to perform laparoscopic biliary surgery again after upper abdominal surgery, not to mention laparoscopic common bile duct exploration after multiple upper abdominal surgeries. Our biliary surgery team at Huashan Hospital tries to perform laparoscopic surgery on every patient with common bile duct stones, patients with obvious bile duct dilatation but ERCP is not suitable, patients with stones larger than 1.5 cm or stuffed stones, regardless of the number of previous surgeries, to break the forbidden zone of not being able to perform laparoscopic surgery after multiple surgeries. Our Biliary Surgery Department at Huashan Hospital now offers a standardized clinical pathway for the treatment of primary or secondary common bile duct stones. If the common bile duct stones are combined with gallbladder stones, bile duct stones less than 1.5 cm can be combined with ERCP and LC; if the bile duct stones are too large or ERCP cannot be performed, and the bile duct dilatation is above 1.0 cm, we can perform laparoscopic exploration of the common bile duct regardless of the history of previous surgery. The common bile duct. If the bile duct is not significantly dilated, a T-tube is considered to be left in place and removed after one month.       As one of the recently developed advanced techniques for the treatment of gallbladder stones and common bile duct stones at home and abroad, common bile duct exploration and extraction with one-stage suturing combines the advantages of laparoscopic, choledochoscopic and duodenoscopic treatment methods to form a minimally invasive biliary surgery technique with wide coverage. Although the advantages of combined triple-scope minimally invasive techniques for the treatment of biliary stones are obvious, the high proportion of biliary structure variation and the surgical risks are still great. Preoperative MRCP to fully understand the biliary structure and the number and location of stones is essential to reduce surgical complications and stone residues. The combined application of triple-scope techniques still needs to be clinically summarized to select the best treatment timing and treatment pathway for the benefit of the patient. A comprehensive understanding of biliary tract diseases, a comprehensive hepatobiliary theory and skilled minimally invasive techniques are essential for the clinical application of any technique so as to minimize the risk of surgery.