Common hepatic duct
Ductus hepaticus communis · Společný jaterní vývod
Digestive system
Looks like
The 3–4 cm bile duct formed where the right and left hepatic ducts join just outside the liver.
What it does
Carries bile from the liver; joined by the cystic duct from the gallbladder, it becomes the common bile duct.
Keeping it well
At risk during gallbladder removal; tumours at its origin (Klatskin tumour) cause painless jaundice.
Related conditions
- Acute liver failure
- Acute porphyria
- Alcohol withdrawal and delirium tremens
- Alcohol-related liver disease
- Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency
- Autoimmune hepatitis
- Bile duct cancer (cholangiocarcinoma)
- Biliary atresia
- Brucellosis
- Cirrhosis
- Dengue & mosquito-borne fevers
- Ebola virus disease
- Echinococcosis (hydatid disease)
- Eye melanoma (uveal melanoma)
- Gallstones
- Gilbert's syndrome
- Haemochromatosis & Wilson's disease
- Hepatic encephalopathy
- High cholesterol
- Intestinal worms & schistosomiasis
- Intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy
- Leishmaniasis
- Leptospirosis (Weil's disease)
- Liver abscess (pyogenic and amoebic)
- Liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma)
- Malaria
- Metabolic fatty liver disease (MASLD)
- Metabolic syndrome
- Myelofibrosis
- Newborn jaundice
- Phenylketonuria (PKU)
- Poisoning & overdose
- Portal vein thrombosis and Budd–Chiari syndrome
- Primary biliary cholangitis
- Primary sclerosing cholangitis
- Viral hepatitis (A, B, C, D, E)
- Yellow fever