Primary needle-knife fistulotomy for preventing post-endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography pancreatitis: Importance of the endoscopist’s expertise level

Table 3 Compared results between the experienced and less-experienced endoscopists in each primary cannulation technique

	Conventional technique with sphincterotomy			NKF
	Experienced (n = 147) (%)	Less-experienced (n = 228) (%)	P value	Experienced (n = 90) (%)	Less-experienced (n = 77) (%)	P value
Success rate	361/375 (96.3)			161/167 (96.4)		0.936
	144/147 (98.0)	217/228 (95.2)	0.166	88/90 (97.8)	73/77 (94.8)	0.306
Cannulation time (min)	4.8 ± 3.5			4.8 ± 3.2		0.951
	5.1 ± 3.5	4.6 ± 3.6	0.200	4.2 ± 3.1	5.5 ± 3.1	0.010a
Total procedure time (min)	17.2 ± 9.2			15.2 ± 8.2		0.019a
	17.6 ± 9.6	16.9 ± 8.9	0.490	14.9 ± 8.4	15.6 ± 8.0	0.598
Post-ERCP pancreatitis	25 (6.7)			4 (2.4)		0.040a
	5 (3.4)	20 (8.9)	0.039a	1 (1.1)	3 (3.9)	0.243
Hyperamylasemia	52 (14.0)			13 (7.8)		0.041a
	15 (10.2)	37 (16.4)	0.090	5 (5.6)	9 (11.7)	0.156
Bleeding	10 (2.7)			6 (3.6)		0.568
	2 (1.4)	8 (3.6)	0.202	2 (2.2)	4 (5.2)	0.306
Perforation	1 (0.3)			0 (0)		0.505
	0 (0)	1 (0.4)	0.423	0 (0)	0 (0)	NA

^aP < 0.05.

NKF: Needle-knife fistulotomy; ERCP: Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography; NA: Not available.