Initial experience with a homemade "hybrid-tome" for needle-knife precut in patients with difficult biliary cannulation.

Background and study aims Current clinical guidelines recommend needle-knife precut (NKP) as the primary and best method for performing a biliary cannulation (BC) when simple techniques fail and the criteria are met for difficult BC (DBC). However, many endoscopists avoid or defer early NKP in favor of alternative, simpler techniques that have not been shown to be either safer or more effective. Our goal is to test a device that provides the needle-knife papillotome (NKPT) with traction capability and which can facilitate the learning and execution of NKP. Patients and methods This was a descriptive bicentric observational study of a personal cohort of patients undergoing early NKP to analyse the efficacy and safety of the technique with a "hybrid-tome" (HT) built using the isolated core of a NKPT and a conventional canulotome. Results Over a 4-year period, we performed 43 NKPs with the HT, achieving BC in one or two steps in all cases. The 100 % technical success was matched by a 95 % clinical success rate. We recorded 11 adverse events (23 %): five hemorrhages, four pancreatitis, and two cholangitis. In addition to the objective data, we confirmed that HT facilitates alignment with the duodenal papilla and the execution of pre-cutting, especially if the papilla is intradiverticular or hidden by folds. Conclusions The HT tested seems to help trained endoscopists to perform NKP, especially in some anatomic situations, which can improve compliance with the guidelines recommended for early NKP in patients with DBC.

The sedation issue: accumulating data while failing to advance towards a solution?

My reading of the monographic issue of April 2018, devoted by REED to sedation in digestive endoscopy, evoked in methe reflections written in this Scientific Lettter.

Impact of combined precut techniques on selective biliary cannulation.

INTRODUCTION: simple biliary cannulation techniques obtain a success rate of 80-95%. Advanced precut techniques are not immediately successful in 10-40% of cases. Between extreme options such as a second attempt a few days later or an immediate attempt by the transparietal route, an alternative precut technique may be used as a rescue strategy for the initially failed procedure. The purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy and safety of the combined use of two precut techniques when immediate biliary access is not granted by an initial procedure. PATIENTS AND METHOD: a retrospective analysis of a personal series of precut (needle-knife and transpancreatic) sphincterotomies, both alone and in combination. RESULTS: five hundred sixty nine ERCPs (endoscopic retrograde cholangio-pancreatography) met the inclusion criteria for the analysis. Simple cannulation was obtained in 444 (78%) of them. In all, 119 (21%) precuts were attempted and 110 (92.4%) were successful, which raised the overall cannulation rate to 97.4%. Ninety-five (80%) precuts were successful with the initial technique. Rescue with the alternative technique was attempted for 20 failures with a successful outcome in 15, which raised the overall success rate to 92%. The combination of needle-knife precut plus transpancreatic precut raised the success rate from 87% to 94%. The combination of transpancreatic precut plus needle-knife precut raised the success rate from 70% to 90%. Among all 96 patients with available follow-up data, 17 (18%) complications were recorded: 9 bleeding episodes, 4 pancreatitis cases, and 4 retroperitoneal perforations. No mortality was recorded. CONCLUSIONS: a combination of precut techniques is effective for biliary cannulation when simple cannulation and initial precut approaches fail. The safety profile differs from that in the delayed strategy, hence both should be considered alternatives, their use depending on the technical and clinical conditions prevailing for each patient, as well as endoscopist experience.