Placement of fully covered metallic stent in a patient with postoperative biliary leakage: A case report

Abstract

Postoperative biliary leakage is a complication that can lead to serious clinical problems. We report our use of the fully covered metallic stent for the management of postoperative biliary leakage. A 72-year-old man, who had undergone resection of the lower middle region of the liver and a biliary tract stone due to advanced gallbladder cancer and common bile duct stone-, presented with biliary leakage. Endoscopic retrograde cholangiography (ERC) was performed and a plastic stent was inserted; however, bile leakage persisted. Thus, we performed repeat ERC and inserted a fully covered metallic stent at the site of bile fistula. Subsequently, recurrent leakage was not noted. We propose that, using a covered metallic stent improves postoperative biliary leakage without impairing the patient's quality of life based on our experience reported here.