Postendoscopic sphincterotomy stenosis.

We report on two patients. The first patient is a 62-year-old female patient who had cholecystectomy in 1970, and in whom two small bile duct stones were removed after endoscopic sphincterotomy in 1987. Within two months of this procedure, she developed three episodes of documented acute pancreatitis. The other patient, a 58-year-old female, developed acute pancreatitis three months after an endoscopic sphincterotomy for stones in the common bile duct. In both patients, ERCP revealed a cicatricial stenosis of the common bile duct and the pancreatic duct. The condition was resolved by repeat sphincterotomy. The first patient needed repeated endoscopic insertion of bilioduodenal endoprostheses and an endoprosthesis in the pancreatic duct. It is interesting to note that, in contrast to surgical reports, very few postpapillotomy stenoses are reported by endoscopists.