Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Endosc. Jun 10, 2015; 7(6): 582-592
Published online Jun 10, 2015. doi: 10.4253/wjge.v7.i6.582
Cholangiocarcinoma and malignant bile duct obstruction: A review of last decades advances in therapeutic endoscopy
Helga Bertani, Marzio Frazzoni, Santi Mangiafico, Angelo Caruso, Mauro Manno, Vincenzo Giorgio Mirante, Flavia Pigò, Carmelo Barbera, Raffaele Manta, Rita Conigliaro
Helga Bertani, Santi Mangiafico, Angelo Caruso, Mauro Manno, Vincenzo Giorgio Mirante, Flavia Pigò, Carmelo Barbera, Raffaele Manta, Rita Conigliaro, Digestive Endoscopy Unit, Baggiovara Hospital, 41126 Modena, Italy
Marzio Frazzoni, Digestive Pathophysiology Unit, Baggiovara Hospital, 41126 Modena, Italy
Author contributions: Bertani H contributed to concept and design of the review, drafting of the manuscript; Pigò F contributed to drafting of the manuscript; Frazzoni M, Mangiafico S, Caruso A, Manno M, Mirante VG and Conigliaro R contributed to concept of the review, critical revision of the manuscript; all authors contributed to this manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest: The authors have no conflict of interests to declare.
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: Helga Bertani, MD, Digestive Endoscopy Unit, Baggiovara Hospital, Viale Giardini 1355, 41126 Modena, Italy. helga88@libero.it
Telephone: +39-59-3961269 Fax: +39-59-3961216
Received: October 28, 2014
Peer-review started: November 5, 2014
First decision: December 26, 2014
Revised: February 16, 2015
Accepted: March 16, 2015
Article in press: March 18, 2015
Published online: June 10, 2015
Processing time: 234 Days and 7.6 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Cholangiocarcinoma are an heterogeneous group of tumor and represent a challenge in medicine because of the difficulty in establishing the diagnosis and an high recurrence rate after surgery which represents the only curative treatment. Endoscopy has gained a pivotal role in the management of the disease, before surgery if patient is amenable to surgical intervention or in those unfit for surgery. New stent prototype able to release drugs and/or photodynamic therapy have been commercialized with promising results. When endoscopy fails, endoscopic ultrasound-guided biliary drainage represents an effective alternative method affording biliary drainage.