Seeing inside the bile duct
Cholangioscopy allows direct endoscopic inspection of the biliary tree. It can add information when conventional imaging and ERCP sampling have not fully resolved the diagnosis and can facilitate targeted intraductal treatment in selected difficult stone disease.
Indeterminate strictures
For a biliary stricture that remains diagnostically uncertain, cholangioscopy-guided assessment or biopsy may be considered alongside other tissue-acquisition strategies. The approach depends on stricture location, imaging and the suspected diagnosis.
Difficult stones
Intraductal lithotripsy under cholangioscopic guidance can be used for selected bile-duct stones that cannot be managed with standard extraction techniques.
References & clinical guidance
Clinical content on this page is original patient-facing writing informed by the cited sources; it is not reproduced from them.
This information is educational and does not replace individual medical assessment. Diagnosis and treatment recommendations depend on the patient, imaging, pathology, disease stage and multidisciplinary assessment.