The accelerated diagnosis of jaundice with ultrasonography and narrow-needle cholangiography.

The accuracy of ultrasonography in the diagnosis of jaundice in 70 patients has been compared with that of transhepatic cholangiography and the results of surgery and liver biopsy. A simplified system of grouping the ultrasonic data is presented. The results indicate that ultrasonography is capable of differentiating obstructive from non-obstructive jaundice in 94% of cases and of defining the correct anatomical level in 85% of cases. The accuracy of narrow-needle cholangiography was 100% for obstructive jaundice and 66% normal duct entry rate for non-obstructive jaundice.