Obstructive jaundice and cholangitis due to choledocholithiasis: treatment by extracorporeal shock-wave lithotripsy.

Endoscopic shock-wave lithotripsy, although now the standard treatment of urolithiasis, has only recently been applied to cholelithiasis. The authors describe the case of an 88-year-old man, a high-risk patient with choledocholithiasis, in whom endoscopic stone extraction after sphincterotomy failed. Extracorporeal shock-wave lithotripsy was used for noninvasive stone fragmentation and the fragments were passed without complication.