No abstract

Surgical cholecystostomyis performed often at our institution for emergent management of acute calculous cholecystitis in high-risk elderly patients.

True accessory bile ducts occur in only 1% of patients. An accessory bile duct connecting the right and left hepatic ducts at the porta hepatis is described. This anomaly has never been reported previously, and was clinically significant in the presence of partial obstruction of an anomalous right hepatic duct by stones. The embryologic origin of this duct, which we term an "interhepatic duct," is uncertain.

Thirty academic radiology departments active in biliary imaging were surveyed to document how frequently intravenous cholangiography (IVC) was being performed. Over a 10-year period the number of examinations has decreased precipitously from approximately 1728 in 1976 to 8 in 1986. This coincides with the increased availability of alternative procedures. The availability of new contrast agents with improved diagnostic yield and decreased toxicity suggests that its use may have been prematurely abandoned.