The relationship between anatomic characteristics and injury type of distal common bile duct        TANG Zhao-hui，HEI Zhen-yu，WENG Ming-zhe，et al. Department of General Surgery， XinHua Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine，Shanghai 200092，China
Corresponding author：TANG Zhao-hui, E-mail：tangzhaohui@yahoo.com
Abstract    Exploration of the common bile duct is the basic operational methods of bile duct surgery. The distal common bile duct is divided into two parts：section within pancreas and section within duodenal wall. Before entering duodenum，the common bile duct lean to back lower place forming a angle between bile duct and duodenal wall equaling about （40.5±4.6）°. Its length is about （1.67±0.52）cm with limited cover of connective tissue. It’s easy to suffer from iatrogenic injury and cause severe complication during exploration of common bile duct in the distal section for its special anatomy, the high occurrences of calculous obstruction and bile duct stricture. The injury of distal common bile duct includes 4 types such as simple bile duct injury，bile duct injury combined with pancreas trauma，bile duct injury combined with duodenal trauma，bile duct injury combined with pancreas and duodenal trauma. Therefore，it is of vital importance to know the special anatomy of distal common bile duct and injury type，and adopt right exploration method.