Preoperative endoscopic biliary drainage in patients with resectable pancreatic cancer

Abstract

The efficacy of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) has been reported and the importance of preoperative biliary drainage for safe administration of NAC has been shown. Recently, self-expandable metallic stents (SEMS) tend to be chosen because of longer stent patency, but there are many problems that are still unresolved. Preoperative biliary drainage should be performed in conjunction with a surgical consultation at the same institution. We reviewed the current status of preoperative biliary drainage in patients with pancreatic cancer in Japan.