Gallbladder cancer

Gallbladder cancer often presents with advanced disease. When found early, surgery can be curative for this particular malignancy. Prognostic factors that influence the success of aggressive surgical therapy include depth of invasion, extent of hepatic infiltration, histologic grade, presence of venous, lymphatic or perineural invasion, and lymph node metastasis. Tumors with tumor limited to the subserosal layer, hepatic infiltration that is only 5 mm or less, papillary or well differentiated adenocarcinomas, tumors with no venous, lymphatic or perineural invasion and lymph node metastasis limited to the hepatoduodenal ligament have the best prognosis with surgery (15, 16, 36). Extended cholecystectomy with lymph node dissection has improved the results of treating T2 gallbladder cancers. More extensive resections should keep the above prognostic factors in mind. When surgical resection is not possible, endoscopic stenting of the biliary tree for palliation of obstructive jaundice is effective. Earlier detection or more effective chemotherapy will be needed to significantly improve the prognosis of this disease.