DEMONSTRATION OF THE HILAR BILIARY CONFLUENCE USING 3D COMPUTED-TOMOGRAPHY CHOLANGIOGRAPHY

Recent improvements in biliary surgery have made it possible to perform radical operations for cancer of the hepatic hilum.(1) However, the upper biliary confluence is more complicated than previously recognized and variations in complex biliary anatomy are often difficult to interpret by conventional cholangiogram. 3D reconstruction from multiple slices of computed tomography (CT) has been applied recently to various internal organs.(2-4) We employed a surface reconstruction technique to demonstrate 3D-CT cholangiography based on the bile duct contour from each of the many slices. The purpose of this article is to illustrate the precision of the 3D-CT cholangiography when applied to the confluence of biliary ducts at the hepatic hilum.