Percutaneous transhepatic cholangiogram (PTC)

Doctors will ask you not to eat or drink for a few hours before a PTC. To help prevent infection, you will take antibiotics before and after the PTC. You will have the procedure in the x-ray department. A doctor called a radiologist will do the procedure.

Once you are lying down, you will have a sedative to make you feel relaxed and drowsy. The doctor injects a local anaesthetic into the skin to numb it. Then they insert a long, thin, flexible needle through the skin and into the liver. The doctor looks at x-ray images on a screen to help them guide the needle to the bile duct.

Once the needle is in the bile duct, they inject a dye. When doctor injects the dye, some people feel warm all over. This is normal and the feeling does not last long.

The dye flows through the ducts and allows doctors to see the blocked area. The doctor passes a fine guide wire along the needle into the blockage in the bile duct. The doctor then passes a stent along this wire. The stent holds the bile duct open where the blockage has narrowed it. This allows bile to flow through it again.

You may feel some pushing when doctors put the wire and stent in. If this is uncomfortable or painful, let the doctor know. They can give you painkillers. You will probably need to stay in hospital overnight.