Purposes: The management of patients with iatrogenic bile duct injuries (IBDI) is a challenging field, often with dismal medico legal projections. Attempts to classify IBDI have been made repeatedly and the final results were either analytical and extensive but not useful in everyday clinical practice systems, or simple and user friendly but with limited clinical correspondence approaches. The purpose of the present review is to propose a novel, clinical classification system of IBDI by reviewing the relevant literature.
Methods: A systematic literature review was conducted by performing bibliographic searches in the available electronic databases, including PubMed, Scopus, and the Cochrane Library.
Results: Based on the literature results, we propose a five (5) stage (A, B, C, D and E) classification system for IBDI (BILE Classification). Each stage is correlated with the recommended and most appropriate treatment. Although the proposed classification scheme is clinically oriented, the anatomical correspondence of each IBDI stage has been incorporated as well, using the Strasberg classification.
Conclusions: BILE classification represents a novel, simple, and dynamic in nature classification system of IBDI. The proposed classification focuses on the clinical consequences of IBDI and provides an action map that can appropriately guide the treatment plan.
Keywords: Roux en Y hepaticojejunostomy; classification systems; iatrogenic bile duct injuries.