<p>This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.</p> <p>The purpose of this paper is to evaluate factors affecting the outcome of cholangitis after PTBD in jaundiced cancer patients. Twenty nine patients with neoplastic jaundice (male/female ratio 13/16, median age 55 years) with full clinical data, were treated by PTBD and developed cholangitis at a median of 9 days later. Four patients (14%) died of biliary sepsis a median of one month after PTBD while the other 25 survived a median of 6 months, with one week median duration of cholangitis. The probability of the cholangitis resolving was analyzed by time to resolution and it was found that 50% and 100% of the recoveries occurred 5 and 9 months respectively from the onset of the complication.</p> <p>The series was analyzed to determine the role of several variables (disease/patient/treatment related)
in the resolution of cholangitis. Only a low stricture site, a large initial drainage catheter (10F) and a
temperature increase exceeding 39<sup>°</sup> C were correlated with a positive outcome. We conclude that
PTBD-related cholangitis has, in our experience, a good chance of cure, low mortality rate and
satisfactory 6 months median survival.</p>
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HPB Surg. 1993; 6(4):287-293