Bacterial Cholangitis: Or something else? Differential Diagnosis

Infectious and parasitic diseases (A00-B99).

  • AIDS cholangiopathy – changes in the bile ducts caused by AIDS disease.
  • Echinococcosis – infection with a tapeworm of the genus Echinococcus.
  • Other parasites, such as Ascaris lumbricoides, Fasciola hepatica, and Opisthorchis spp.

Liver, gallbladder, and bile ducts – Pancreas (pancreas) (K70-K77; K80-K87).

  • Acute cholecystitis (gallbladder inflammation).
  • Acute hepatitis (inflammation of the liver)
  • Acute pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas).
  • Cholangitis (bile duct inflammation) due to protozoa (lambliasis / giardiasis), parasites (helminthoses; echinococcosis) and viruses (HIV/AIDS).
  • Primary biliary cholangitis (PBC, synonyms: non-purulent destructive cholangitis; formerly primary biliary cirrhosis) – relatively rare autoimmune disease of the liver (affects women in about 90% of cases); begins primarily biliary, i.e., at the intra- and extrahepatic bile ducts, which are destroyed by inflammation (= chronic non-purulent destructive cholangitis). In the longer course, the inflammation spreads to the entire liver tissue and eventually leads to scarring and even cirrhosis; detection of antimitochondrial antibodies (AMA); PBC is often associated with autoimmune diseases (autoimmune thyroiditis, polymyositis, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), progressive systemic sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis); associated with ulcerative colitis in 80% of cases; long-term risk of cholangiocellular carcinoma is 7-15% (5% of patients with ulcerative colitis develop PBC)
  • Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) – chronic inflammation of the extrahepatic and intrahepatic (located outside and inside the liver) bile ducts.

Mouth, esophagus (food pipe), stomach, and intestines (K00-K67; K90-K93).

  • Abdominal pain (abdominal pain)

Neoplasms – tumor diseases (C00-D48)