The Relation Between The Common Bile Duct Diameter And Serum Bilirubin In Common Bile Duct Obstruction

Abstract

Although abdominal U/S is a good initial screening method for detection of biliary tract disease, we sometimes encounter patients in whom the only finding is dilatation of the common bile duct on U/S, without specific biliary symptoms or jaundice. This study aimed to evaluate the types of relation between the common bile duct diameter and hyper bilirubinaemia. Hundred and twenty six patients were included in this study. The common bile duct diameter and the serum bilirubin were measured. It was concluded that, there was a weak correlation between the CBD diameter and serum bilirubin level (correlation cofficent = 0316). The rise in serum bilirubin was found to be highly related to the duration of the obstruction (P<0.001). 12.7% of the study groups have a normal serum bilirubin inspite of dilated common bile duct (56.25%) of them proved to have CBD stone (P=0.993). Very high bilirubin level reflects malignant obstruction rather than choledocholithiasis. The age is shown to have no relation to the common bile duct diameter (P-value= 0.904) as proved by this study. The serum albumin is proved to have a significant relation to the serum bilirubin (P=0.032), and low albumin level leads to significant rise in the serum bilirubin, while, INR (although is found to be prolonged in (41%)) has no such a relation.