Anatom3DCommon bile duct
Ductus choledochus · Hlavní žlučovod
Digestive system
Looks like
A tube about 6–8 cm long and a few millimetres wide running down behind the duodenum to open into it.
What it does
Carries bile from the liver and gallbladder into the gut.
Keeping it well
A stone or tumour blocking it causes jaundice, dark urine and pale stools; with fever and shivering this is an emergency.
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