Diagnosis of Hepatic Stones

Masao Ohto

First Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine, Chiba University

It is more difficult to diagnose hepatic stones than gallbladder and bile duct stones. However, diagnosis by modern imaging methods such as ultrasonography and X-ray CT are making it easier and more reliable. They show that percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography and endoscopic retrograde cholangiography, regarded heretofore as the most incisive methods, are not always enough to demonstrate all of the changes of hepatic stones in the liver. Ultrasonography has for the first time evidenced the pathology of hepatic stones located in the peripheral bile ducts of the subsegment. The incidence of hepatic stones varies with the diagnostic methods used and with the districts in Japan and other countries in the world. Recently, new knowledge of the pathology and etiolohy of hepatic stones have been acquired, so we need to investigate again the ways of treatment, surgical as well as non-surgical.

Key words
diagnosis of hepatic stones, ultrasound diagnosis of hepatic stones, X-ray CT diagnosis of hepatic stones

Reprint requests
Masao Ohto The lst Department of Medicine, Chiba University School of Medicine
1-801 Inohana, Chiba, 280 JAPAN

Accepted
September 19, 1989

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