Present status of the diagnosis and treatment of gallbladder carcinoma

Because early carcinoma of the gallbladder causes no specific signs or symptoms, most patients with this disease are diagnosed with advanced-stage tumors. High-resolution ultrasonography and a low index of suspicion for polypoid masses or asymmetric gallbladder thickening represent the best method of early detection. Despite regular preoperative gallbladder imaging, many cancers are only detected intraoperatively or incidentally on pathologic examination. All known or suspected gallbladder cancers should be definitively treated with a laparotomy, not laparoscopic surgery. For early gallbladder cancers (Tis and T1 cancers), simple cholecystectomy is adequate therapy. More advanced-stage carcinomas without distant metastases should routinely be managed with a radical cholecystectomy, which includes partial hepatectomy and regional lymphadenectomy. Any adherent organs should be resected en bloc with the cancer. Pancreatoduodenectomy has been performed in several Japanese centers, but is rarely performed in the West for locally advanced gallbladder cancers. Most patients who undergo curative resection will develop recurrent disease, but there is currently no proven effective adjuvant therapy.