New trends in the diagnosis and therapy of acute cholangitis.

For a long time, acute cholangitis has been a difficult therapeutic problem, mostly due to the limited information about the jaundiced patient available from diagnostic investigations. The diagnostic precision of percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography in association with the great therapeutic possibilities of percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage has solved this problem. The successful results obtained in 37 patients with acute cholangitis prove the value of this approach.