Transluminal intrahepatic bile duct stone removal using a novel spiral basket catheter via the endoscopic ultrasound-guided hepaticogastrostomy route (with video)

Recently, endoscopic ultrasound (EUS)-guided biliary drainage has been developed as an alternative biliary drainage technique for failed endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) or inaccessible papilla. Among the various EUS-guided biliary drainage procedures, EUS-guided hepaticogastrostomy (HGS) can be performed in patients with surgically altered anatomy. More recently, various transluminal treatments have been described after EUS-HGS, such as antegrade stone removal. In patients with hepaticojejunostomy strictures, stone extraction into the intestine might be challenging even after performing hepaticojejunostomy stricture dilation using a balloon catheter. In such cases, transluminal stone removal is considered an alternative method. With transluminal stone removal, a small stone that escapes from the conventional basket or from a balloon catheter could migrate into the branch bile ducts. The novel spiral basket catheter available in Japan. The wires form a helix shape, wherein each wire is wound counterclockwise, and the winding pitch becomes gradually tighter from the proximal portion to the tip. As the winding pitch is smaller and the wires are in closer contact with the bile duct wall as compared with conventional basket catheter, small bile duct stones can be easily captured by simply pulling back the catheter while the basket is open. In addition, even during withdrawal inside the bile duct, a high retrieval performance is assured by the special design that maintains the opening width on the top end. Therefore, transluminal stone removal using this novel basket catheter might be clinically useful, although further prospective evaluation of a larger number of cases is needed.