Endoscopic gallbladder drainage for acute cholecystitis with high-risk surgical patients between transduodenal and transpapillary stenting
Kyouhei Nishiguchi, Takeshi Ogura, Atsushi Okuda, Saori Ueno, Nobu Nishioka, Masanori Yamada, Jun Matsuno, Kazuya Ueshima, Yoshitaro Yamamoto, Kazuhide Higuchi
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: EUS-guided gallbladder drainage (GBD) has emerged as an alternative GBD technique, particularly for high-risk surgical patients. To prevent stent migration or to facilitate stent deployment, the lumen-apposing metal stent (LAMS) was recently developed for EUS-GBD. However, LAMS remains unavailable in several countries and is expensive compared with conventional fully covered self-expandable metal stent (FCSEMS). Although several studies have shown the clinical benefits of EUS-GBD using novel FCSEMS or LAMS compared with endoscopic transpapillary GBD (ETGBD), the choice between ETGBD and EUS-GBD using conventional FCSEMS and ETGBD remains controversial. The aim of this study was to evaluate EUS-GBD using conventional FCSEMS compared with ETGBD. Materials and Methods: This comparative retrospective study included consecutive symptomatic AC patients who underwent gallbladder drainage by either EUS-GBD or ETGBD between January 2015 and December 2018.The main outcome measures were technical success, clinical success, procedure-related and stent-related adverse events, and recurrence of AC during follow-up. RESULTS: Fifty-four patients (44.4% female, 55.6% male) who underwent EUS-GBD (n = 25) or ETGBD (n = 29) were enrolled. Initial technical success rates were 100% with EUS-GBD and 82.7% (24/29) with ETGBD. The median procedure time was significantly shorter for the EUS-GBD group than for the ETGBD group (11.0 vs. 24.0 min, P < 0.05). Procedure-related adverse events did not differ significantly between groups (P = 0.283). During follow-up (median 522 days, range 43 - 1892 days), recurrent acute cholecystitis (AC) was only observed in 4 patients from the ETGBD group. Overall survival did not differ significantly between the EUS-GBD group (mean 1070 days) and ETGBD group (mean 1470 days) (P = 0.292). CONCLUSION: The technical success rate for EUS-GBD using FCSEMS with plastic stent insertion was significantly higher with a shorter procedure time and resulted in a lower rate of recurrent AC.