Endoscopic gallbladder drainage for acute cholecystitis with high-risk surgical patients between transduodenal and transpapillary stenting

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: EUS-guided gallbladder drainage (GBD) has emerged as an alternative GBD technique, particularly for high-risk surgical patients. To prevent stent migration or to facilitate stent deployment, the lumen-apposing metal stent (LAMS) was recently developed for EUS-GBD. However, LAMS remains unavailable in several countries and is expensive compared with conventional fully covered self-expandable metal stent (FCSEMS). Although several studies have shown the clinical benefits of EUS-GBD using novel FCSEMS or LAMS compared with endoscopic transpapillary GBD (ETGBD), the choice between ETGBD and EUS-GBD using conventional FCSEMS and ETGBD remains controversial. The aim of this study was to evaluate EUS-GBD using conventional FCSEMS compared with ETGBD. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This comparative retrospective study included consecutive symptomatic AC patients who underwent gallbladder drainage by either EUS-GBD or ETGBD between January 2015 and December 2018. The main outcome measures were technical success, clinical success, procedure-related and stent-related adverse events, and recurrence of AC during follow-up. RESULTS: Fifty-four patients (44.4% female, 55.6% male) who underwent EUS-GBD (n = 25) or ETGBD (n = 29) were enrolled. Initial technical success rates were 100% with EUS-GBD and 82.7% (24/29) with ETGBD. The median procedure time was significantly shorter for the EUS-GBD group than for the ETGBD group (11.0 vs. 24.0 min, P < 0.05). Procedure-related adverse events did not differ significantly between groups (P = 0.283). During follow-up (median 522 days, range 43 – 1892 days), recurrent acute cholecystitis (AC) was only observed in 4 patients from the ETGBD group. Overall survival did not differ significantly between the EUS-GBD group (mean 1070 days) and ETGBD group (mean 1470 days) (P = 0.292). CONCLUSION: The technical success rate for EUS-GBD using FCSEMS with plastic stent insertion was significantly higher with a shorter procedure time and resulted in a lower rate of recurrent AC.