Making common duct exploration common

Hi, I'm Ellen and Cisco at Cincinnati Children's, and here's an article you should know about. In this study, the authors reviewed their experience with laparoscopic common bile duct exploration with balloon sphincteroplasty for patients with pediatric cholodocholithiasis. This was a retrospective review at their institution between 2018 and 2021. In the paper, they include illustrations and a description of their technique for laparoscopic common bile duct exploration with balloon sphincteroplasty, and they compared these patients with patients who had the standard laparoscopic cholecystectomy with ERCP and the patients who had a laparoscopic common bile duct exploration with standard techniques, meaning no balloon sphincteroplasty. They found that doing the balloon sphincteroplasty was associated with an increased operative time, but was also associated with a 100% success rate, meaning those patients didn't need an ERCP after the procedure. But some of the patients who had a laparoscopic common bile duct exploration with standard techniques did need an ERCP after the procedure. And laparoscopic cholecystectomy with ERCP was associated with an increased length of hospital stay and with more complications like stent placements and stent migration. So for pediatric patients with cholodocholithiasis, laparoscopic common bile duct exploration may be a good option and can be combined with balloon sphincteroplasty, and it can be associated with decreased hospital length of stay and decreased complications. Check out the article in the link below and let us know what you think.