The Radiologist’s Role in the Minimally Invasive Therapy of Residual Common Bile Duct Lithiasis

29 Ioana Petrescu Coltea Clinical Hospital 1-3 I.C. Bratianu Blvd, 030171 Bucharest, Romania e-mail: [email protected] Abstract. Residual lithiasis found in the main bile duct entails the presence, at the site, of one or more calculi, consequent to a surgical procedure for gallbladder or common bile duct lithiasis. Currently, the surgical community is trying to treat this condition via a minimally invasive procedure: endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography. A bile duct obstacle can be diagnosed based on several imagistic methods, the most important ones being: the ultrasound, computed tomography or the cholangioMRI. These methods aim to detect an obstacle, to establish its nature, location and size. The decision to apply these imagistic diagnostics techniques or different ones, depending on their indications, contraindications or their succession belongs, entirely, to the radiologist. In this sense, we compared the results we have obtained so far to specialised studies and research, in an attempt to establish the highest reliability level in the diagnostic imaging investigation of the common bile duct lithiasis whose absence would make impossible an endoscopic retrograde colangiopancreatography.