Utility and safety of endoscopic papillary balloon dilation with small‐incision sphincterotomy for small bile duct stones: A randomized controlled trial

Endoscopic sphincterotomy (ES) for bile duct stones (BDS) can cause basket impaction with stone, complicating the procedure. In this study, we evaluated the utility and safety of small incision ES combined with endoscopic papillary balloon dilation (sES + EPBD) (balloon dilated up to the stone size), compared with ES alone for BDS <12 mm.