Papillomatosis of biliary tree

PubMed, the Internet portal of biomedical and life sciences literature, indexed an interesting article, entitled “Successful treatment of papillomatosis of intra- and extrahepatic biliary tree.” (Liver Transpl. 2007 Jul;13(7):1045-8). Authors are Imvrios G, Papanikolaou V, Lalountas M, et al., from the Department of Transplant Surgery, Aristotle University, Hippokration Hospital, Thessaloniki, Greece. Approximately 60 cases of biliary papillomatosis have been reported in the world literature, while only 6 cases have been reported to be treated with liver transplantation. This rare disease, which is characterized by relapsing episodes of obstructive jaundice and cholangitis that lead to secondary cirrhosis and death from sepsis or liver failure, it is also considered premalignant because of its frequent malignant transformation (25-50%). The authors present a case of a 43-year-old white man with papillomatosis of intra- and extrahepatic biliary tree who sought care for repeated episodes of obstructive jaundice and cholangitis. The patient underwent orthotopic liver transplantation with Roux-en-Y hepatico-jejunostomy to treat end-stage liver cirrhosis. To access the full abstract of the article, click here.