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©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Endosc. Jul 10, 2015; 7(8): 799-805
Published online Jul 10, 2015. doi: 10.4253/wjge.v7.i8.799
Published online Jul 10, 2015. doi: 10.4253/wjge.v7.i8.799
Endoscopic ultrasound in common bile duct dilatation with normal liver enzymes
Claudio De Angelis, Milena Marietti, Mauro Bruno, Rinaldo Pellicano, Mario Rizzetto, Department of Gastroenterology and Digestive Endoscopy, “Città della Salute e della Scienza”, University of Turin, 10126 Turin, Italy
Author contributions: De Angelis C and Rizzetto M designed the aim of the editorial and critically revised the manuscript for important intellectual content; Marietti M and Bruno M equally contributed to acquisition, analysis and interpretation of data and wrote the manuscript; Pellicano R wrote and revised the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have nothing to disclose regarding funding from industries or conflict of interest with respect to this manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Claudio De Angelis, MD, Professor, Department of Gastroenterology and Digestive Endoscopy, “Città della Salute e della Scienza”, University of Turin, corso Bramante 88, 10126 Turin, Italy. eusdeang@hotmail.com
Telephone: +39-011-6335558 Fax: +39-011-6335927
Received: August 28, 2014
Peer-review started: August 28, 2014
First decision: October 14, 2014
Revised: April 13, 2015
Accepted: May 26, 2015
Article in press: May 28, 2015
Published online: July 10, 2015
Peer-review started: August 28, 2014
First decision: October 14, 2014
Revised: April 13, 2015
Accepted: May 26, 2015
Article in press: May 28, 2015
Published online: July 10, 2015
Core Tip
Core tip: Common bile duct dilatation, often without identified causes, in subjects with normal liver function tests and nonspecific abdominal symptoms, and absence of lesions on prior noninvasive imaging tests, is increasingly found in the clinical practice. Since the clinical suspicion for biliary pathology in that setting is usually low, and there are limited literature data, this condition is ignored. However, recent evidences show the existence of pathologies among these patients, often with a non-benign course. In this scenario, endoscopic ultrasound may have a role in the identification of the etiology of dilatation.