[Klatskin unresectable tumour. Palliative treatment or no surgical operation?]

The Klatskin tumor is a neoplasy of the proximate main biliary duet whose initial manifestation, and most of the time, the single one, consist in the appliance of an obstructive nature jaundice. This usually coincides with the spreading of the tumor beyond the walls of the tumors that have reached this state with a usually intraoperating made diagnosis, certain palliative technical surgery solutions could still exist. The author submits to your attention a retrospective survey on 85 tumors out of which only 3 were removable. For the remaining 82 he performed only exploratory laparotomy. Of these biopsy was made for 11 cases and palliative surgery for the other 71 (biliodigestive derivations on one or both liver lobes, or Huguet, Terblanche or Kehr tube surgery prosthesis operations). If the patient's living conditions are very good, his survival chances might be extended from 2 to 18 months, with no appearance of jaundice or pruritus. There is no doubt that if the pre-operations imagery testing results in the diagnosis "inoperable medical condition", the retrograde endoscopic transtumoral surgery prosthesis operation or the transparietal liver one, is recommended.