Question about Common Bile Duct Stricture

Dear ,Lainey and Marion,
Thank you so much for your replys. The website you had sent me I had read. I had the ERCP to see if I haves Enough small intestine. I only have about 10 feet left. As a child I grew excessive amounts of scare tissue that caused gangrene so they had to remove quite a bit of them. I would really appreciate if you could tell me what kind of doc surgeon I should see. The stricture has been 15 mm for the last 6 moths. So says all the test I have had. Anything you can suggest I would very much appreciate. My very best too both of you.
Hugs

Dear Abby, welcome to our remarkable family and the best place for CC support. I think it is time for you to get a 2nd opinion. First of all you want to make sure that you do or don’t have CC. We can only give advice on CC and it seems to me you definitely need another opinion as 6 months is way too long. Make sure you go to an ONC who is very experienced with CC and that he uses a Hospital who has also had experience with CC. Where are you located ? I take it there has been no treatment so far? Not acceptable for what ever it may be. Please let us know what is found out as we are anxious to start helping.

Virginiagal…you might want to print out Isaac’s posting and take along when visiting the physicians. Isaac’s experience is a case they might want to look at.
Hugs and good luck,
Marion

Hi Teresa,

To answer your question:

Yes, the bile duct can become blocked by a benign stricture. Unfortunately, the existing diagnostic tests cannot reliably distinguish cancerous and benign strictures. They look almost the same on all tests.

Benign strictures can be caused by:

* Inflammation.

* Surgical trauma from prior surgery in the area, such as gallbladder removal.

This is not a complete list. I recall seeing medical papers that discussed about 5-7 different types of benign strictures. I will post the links if I can find them.

Your mother’s story reminds me a bit of my own (which you can read about on here in more detail if you look at my old messages), just under a year ago I went in to see my doctor thinking I was a ,mostly healthy 42 year old man, who was just getting over a broken back due to a fall a few months earlier, on a routine follow up visit, I mentioned I had been experiencing some itching and he did blood work for liver levels which started the ball rolling. Ultra-sound found gallstones, referral to a general surgeon then to an MRCP which showed a “blockage” in the common bile duct, so the surgeon sent me to a Gastroenterologist for an ERCP, which found the blockage was really a stricture (scraping biopsy negative, but also told they were unreliable in these cases), on to a specialist Gastroenterologist who did a Spyglass ERCP, biopsy again negative, but visually he reported it looked “highly consistant with CC”, places a stint to help things flow so on to the speciality liver surgeons. I have my fist gallbladder pain a few days before my appointment to consult with the surgeons, local doctor puts me on antibiotics knowing I was scheduled to see a surgeon within a few days, I see the surgeon am told it is an 80% chance of CC even with negative biopsies, he is concerend about the gallbladder infection, schedules me in for surgery (ended up getting a Roux-en-Y hepaticojejunostomy instead of Whipple due to placement of the stricture higher up in the bile duct, similar surgery though), surgeon has a CT scan done, and ends up admitting my to the hospital on the spot, gallbladder is highly infected, erored into the liver, looks like the stint blocked the opening to the gallbladder which was already mostly blocked by gallstones, they put a drain in and have me on IV antibiotics for a week, then home for a week or so to let the infection clear up then back for the big surgery with a drain pouch taped to my side. I have the big surgery and thankfully it turned out the stricture was benign, the surgeon said it was best to do the surgery anyway as even if benign strictures can turn into CC a lot of the time. Spent a week in the hospital, then several weeks recovering at home, the surgery was rough, but the real issue was the fatigue afterward, even 6-8 weeks later I barely had the strength to drive myself to the store to run short errands. Anyway I just had my 6 month follow up, liver lelels look good, but the doctors are telling me it will have to be checked every 6 months from here on out.