Table 1.

Clinical characteristics of patients

	Acute cholangitis (n = 794)a	Other disease (n = 638)
	Etiology; choledocholithiasis (n = 402) malignant tumor (n = 392)	Choledocholithiasis (n = 178), obstructive jaundice caused by malignant tumor (n = 241) acute cholecystitis (n = 219)
Age	71.7 ± 11.8	68.5 ± 12.3
Sex (male:female)	490:304	307:331
Charcot triad	147 (18.5 %)	26 (4.1 %)
Abdominal pain	435 (54.8 %)	309 (48.4 %)

Presence of purulent biliary leakage

Clinical remission due to bile duct drainage

Remission achieved by antimicrobial therapy alone in patients in whom the only site of infection was the biliary tree

^aThe ‘Gold Standard’ for acute cholangitis in this study was that one of the following three conditions was present