Stenting

Gastrointestinal disease can cause various types of blockages. These may be in the biliary ducts, or may be in the esophagus, stomach, small intestine, or colon, as a result of cancerous growths (e.g., malignancies of the intestines, pancreas, or stomach) or benign strictures.

Stents are small tubes that specialists use today in medicine to keep a variety of vessels, ducts, and passages open. They may be made of expandable metallic mesh, or they may be made of plastic and look like a small straw.

Specialists widely use these devices, for example, to keep constricted bile ducts open as well as to prevent infection in these ducts and inflammation in the pancreas. (Scar tissue or tumors that block normal drainage can cause these narrowed areas of bile or pancreatic ducts and lead to complications.) Physicians can place stents for this purpose using ERCP or via a surgical operation.

Increasingly, stents are also placed in the larynx, pharynx, or esophagus as palliative treatment when malignant growths have narrowed these openings. More recently, specialists are using stents to keep open the stomach, the small intestine, and the large intestine, and the passages between these organs.

These procedures can help patients to eat and digest food more normally and often to avoid an urgent surgical operation intended to bypass the constricted area. Stenting can provide patients more time in preparation for surgery, should their physician determine that they need an operation.

Stents may become obstructed after a certain number of months or years. Patients not uncommonly require a repeat procedure. Metal stents must remain in place but plastic ones can be removed and replaced.