EurekAlert -- Surgery is the only curative treatment in patients with bile duct cancer. To develop a therapeutic concept a reliable diagnostic procedure is of great importance in these patients. Due to longitudinal tumor growth along the bile duct, imaging techniques including ultrasound, computed tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging are of limited sensitivity for the detection of bile duct cancer. Brush cytology and/or forceps biopsy during endoscopy are routinely used for distinction between benign bile duct stricture and bile duct cancer. The current study was designed to address the question of diagnostic sensitivity for brush cytology and forceps biopsy in a homogeneous patient group with bile duct cancer.
