A good ERCP guidewire should have such characteristics: soft, smooth, tough, not easy to break, easy to identify, impermeable to X-ray and anti-knotting (anti-winding) and so on.

The core of ERCP guidewire is at the tip of ERCP guidewire - "loach head". It is soft and tenacious and moves like a loach, so it is customary to call the head of ERCP guidewire loach head.

The soft and elastic tip can facilitate the selective entry into the narrow segment, and ensure that the ERCP guidewire can avoid stabbing or piercing the tissue, resulting in perforation, timely discount and rebound, so as to ensure that the ERCP guidewire can pass through the narrow lesions of biliary and pancreatic duct safely and effectively.

Although the technological improvement of "loach head" is obvious, the perforation caused by ERCP guidewire under ERCP endoscopy still occurs from time to time. In order to avoid the perforation of ERCP guidewire, we should pay attention to the selection of ERCP guidewire and improve the experience and skills of ERCP guidewire insertion.

The toughness of ERCP guidewire is the main function of ERCP guidewire after crossing the narrow section, and it also fully reflects the importance of "lifeline".

The toughness of ERCP guidewire determines the supporting force and hardness of ERCP guidewire, so excellent ERCP guidewire or too soft ERCP guidewire may bring operational trouble or increase operational difficulty to the diagnosis and treatment of ERCP.

The outer surface of ERCP guidewire is coated with hydrophilic coating. After water immersion, the outer surface becomes very lubricating, which is convenient to pass through accessories such as cutting knife, sacculus and net basket and so on.

In other words, after the lubrication of the hydrophilic coated ERCP guidewire, it is convenient to exchange accessories sensitively, rotate the ERCP guidewire and related ERCP products, and perform fine operations such as shaking and rotation of the ERCP guidewire.

The visibility identification of ERCP guidewire is mainly to facilitate the observation of the movement of ERCP guidewire under direct vision of endoscope.

The logos for the ERCP guidewire are designed slightly differently by each company, but they are all based on the convenience of the doctor to easily observe the movement of the ERCP guidewire.

At present, the spiral stripe is mainly used, so it is called "zebra ERCP guidewire".

At present, the diameter of ERCP guidewire has various specifications such as 0.018inch, 0.025inch, 0.035inch and 0.038inch. However, currently the diameters of 0.025inch and 0.035inch are mostly used in clinical practice.