Primary sclerosing cholangitis and the management of uncertainty and complexity

Abstract

Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is a rare chronic autoimmune disease with no effective therapy and a large unmet need for new treatments. Patients require significant healthcare resources over their lifetime with high rates of hospital admission, malignancy, liver transplantation and death. As a rare disease, expertise in management can be limited to large referral liver transplant programmes, and even then there is frequently variation in practice. In this case-based review, we aim to discuss common clinical dilemmas encountered by clinicians managing patients with PSC and address related competencies in the 2010 Gastroenterology Curriculum.