Endoscopic lithotripsy in the common bile duct.

After appropriate preliminary experiments in animals and in corpses, electrohydraulic lithotripsy has been used for the first time in humans in an attempt to destroy stones in the bile duct. For this purpose, a lithotripsy probe combined with a Dormia basket was constructed. To date, this method has been successfully applied to break fragments off large calculi in three patients, without any complications arising. In one case, subsequent extraction of the remaining part of the stone was possible. The probe must, however, be improved to ensure that the stone is always held centrally in the basket.