BACKGROUND New treatment methods for calculus disease of the biliary tract offer options that can benefit a variety of patients. Laparoscopic surgery, for example, has revolutionized biliary surgery and is now the preferred approach for the majority of patients. METHODS Using the key words "biliary tract," "calculus disease," and "cholecystectomy," MEDLINE files were searched from 1982 to the...

Copyright © 2016 Mohamad H. Imam et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Biliary tract disorders encompass a wide range of benign and malignant disease processes. In this special issue, we aimed to highlight advance...

The clinical significance and virulence potential of Enterococcus casseliflavus/flavescens and Enterococcus gallinarum are still uncertain. We retrospectively analyzed 56 cases of significant bacteremia caused by E. casseliflavus or E. gallinarum. Of these cases, 25 (44.6%) were associated with polymicrobial bacteremia, and 43 (76.8%) were associated with entry via the biliary tract. Resistance...

OPINION STATEMENT A paradigm shift towards molecular-based, personalized cancer therapeutics has occurred in recent years and a number of targeted drugs have emerged. Various targeted therapies like erlotinib, trastuzumab, and cetuximab have been approved in lung, breast, and colon cancers, respectively. Numerous clinical trials involving targeted drugs in biliary tract cancers are currently in...

In most of the cases, pancreatic cancer and malignancies of the bile tract can only be treated palliatively. Endoscopy offers several methods for effective control of the symptoms in those situations. In pancreatic cancer, stenting of bile ducts enables a control of jaundice most of the time. Stenting of an obstructed duodenum can relieve symptoms of gastric outlet obstruction without the need ...

Curative resection is the only treatment for biliary tract cancer that achieves long-term survival. However, patients with advanced biliary tract cancer have only a limited prognosis even after radical surgical resection. Thus, to improve the longterm results, the early detection of biliary tract cancer and subsequent cure seem to be essential. The purpose of this study was to review the litera...

Background: Biliary tract diseases in the elderly are common and representing particular both diagnostic and therapeutic problems. Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) is effective for the diagnosis and treatment of hepatobiliary and pancreatic diseases. Objective: To study the presentations of obstructive biliary disease, and the treatment outcome in elderly patients who under...

5-FU is the drug most frequently used to treat biliary tract cancer, while dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD) is known to be a principal factor in 5-FU drug resistance. However, whether DPD activity and mRNA levels correlate with response to 5-FU is unknown for biliary tract cancers. The precise mechanism of DPD regulation also remains to be elucidated. In the present study, we quantitativel...

BACKGROUND The cystic dilatation of the biliary tract is a rare disease and uncertain origin. It is recognized more frequently in children; however, its incidence comes increasing in adults, representing 20% of the cases. AIM To evaluate morbimortality rates, evolution and handing of patients with cystic dilatation bile ducts in adults. METHODS Were evaluated, retrospectively, five adults w...

It is necessary to establish effective chemotherapy to improve the survival of patients with biliary tract cancer, because most of these patients are unsuitable candidates for surgery, and even patients undergoing curative surgery often have recurrence. Recently, the combination of cisplatin plus gemcitabine was reported to show survival benefits over gemcitabine alone in randomized clinical tr...