Introduction:

Percutaneous biliary drainage is an option for treatment of obstructive jaundice in patients where endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography is not successful.

Objective:

To present the experience of percutaneous biliary drainage in patients with bile duct obstruction.

Material and methods:

The records of all patients who underwent percutaneous biliary drainage due to benign or malignant bile duct obstruction were reviewed, obtaining demographic information, clinical presentation, diagnostic method and paraclinical tests, cause, rate of successful dilation and associated complications.

Results:

67 cases of patients undergoing percutaneous biliary drainage were identified, the majority (n = 45; 65.7%) presented between 40 and 60 years of age. They had jaundice, weight loss or fever 85.7%, 77.6% and 34.3%, respectively. Of these patients, 86.3% had malignant lesions and 13.4% benign. The dilation success rate was 96.5%; the unsuccessful ones were due to multiple adhesions or pancreatic lesions (3.5%). Complications associated with the procedure were: sepsis (3.6%) and hemorrhage (1.8%).

Conclusions:

Percutaneous biliary drainage has a high success rate in HAMo and is associated with a low frequency of complications.