الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Over the past decade, MRCP has started to replace ERCP as the diagnostic study of choice for a variety of biliary and pancreatic conditions. Initially, MRCP was extremely limited in its diagnostic accuracy and used sparingly in extremely cooperative patients. The advent of respiratory trigger techniques gradually enabled MRCP use in almost all patients. The results of our study suggest comparable effectiveness between MRCP and ERCP in diagnosing and identifying the cause of biliary obstruction. We found that MRCP is a rapid and non-invasive, procedure in assessing cases with suspicious biliary obstruction. MRCP offered a diagnostic accuracy nearly equivocal to ERCP. Results were particularly favourable for benign strictures and less so for choledocholethiasis. MRCP can also replace the diagnostic part of ERCP procedure, so that time is spent only on its therapeutic part, and hence decreasing complications of a lengthy ERCP. Consequently, we propose MRCP as the method of choice for the diagnostic imaging of biliary obstruction. ERCP is reserved for therapeutic intervention in this setting. |