EXPAND your practice by using fully covered metallic stents as first-line treatment for chronic pancreatitis –induced bile duct strictures

The advent of fully covered self-expandable metallic stents (FCSEMSs) represented a disruptive innovation in biliary endotherapy for benign biliary strictures. As compared with standard plastic stents, which usually require several procedures to gradually upsize the diameter of a stricture by the placement of multiple stents in parallel, the radial expansion of FCSEMSs introduced the possibility of deploying a single device that could maximally dilate the stricture. FCSEMSs are effective in cases refractory to multiple plastic stents and have comparable efficacy while reducing the number of requisite procedures when used as first-line therapy for benign common bile duct strictures.
Source: Gastrointestinal Endoscopy - Category: Gastroenterology Authors: Tags: Original article Source Type: research