Prospective Observational Cohort Study: To Assess the Utility of Bio-degradable Bile Duct Stent in the Drainage of Bile Duct.

This is a Multi-centre prospective observational cohort study assessing biodegradable stents in the drainage of bile duct. The participating organisations are Nottingham university hospitals NHS trust which is the host and sponsor of this study, University college London Hospitals NHS foundation trust and Leeds teaching hospitals NHS trust.

The population studied will be patients who need temporary bile duct stent insertion for bile leak and patients who had ERCP for removal of CBD stones and have stones either in the neck of gall bladder or cystic duct and awaiting cholecystectomy. These are the group of patients who may not benefit from a repeat endoscopic procedure to remove the stent. As the target population is rare, all consecutive patients with above condition will be recruited to the study.

All patients who are referred for ERCP will be screened to see if they meet the eligibility criteria to participate in the study. The patient information sheet (PIS) will be sent to the patient along with the endoscopy appointment. The pateints will be consented both for the procedure and the study on the day of the procedure. Then the patients will have the procedure in their respective endoscopic units. All ERCP procedures will be done either by an accredited endoscopist or by a trainee under the close supervision of the accredited endoscopist.

Once the patients have their treatment, the patients will be observed for four hours for complications. Then discharged home if they are well and do not have any symptoms such as pain, persistent low blood pressure (defined as systolic less than 100) and have recovered from the effects of sedation. If at all the pateints develop any of the above symptoms, then the patients will be admitted for an overnight observation. The patients will have a telephone consultation by research specialist nurses the next day to assess if they have symptoms such as abdominal pain, vomiting, vomiting of blood and dark tarry stools. If the patients develop any of these symptoms, the patients will be assessed in the bio-medical research centre or respective inpatient facility in relevant centres. The patients will then have a blood test including full blood count, liver function and renal function. Amylase will be done only if they complain of abdominal pain as a proportion of patients will have hyper-amylasaemia following ERCP. The patients will also receive a telephone consultation (Research nurse) on day 7 post procedure to assess if they have any of the above symptoms. A quality of life questionnaire will be completed at this stage.

The investigators will be using slow degrading stents so, therefore the patients will have an abdominal x-ray 90 days after the procedure and if the stent is not visible on abdominal X-ray then they would have completed the study. As recent studies have shown that the stent appear partially degraded in some patients, if the stent is visible on x-ray then the patients will have one more follow up visit with an abdominal x-ray at 180 days. The invetstigator will not remove the stent as the stent would have partially degraded and would have lost its tensile strength.