Hepatopancreatoduodenectomy for advanced carcinoma of the biliary tract

Twenty-four patients with advanced carcinoma of the gallbladder and/or the bile duct underwent hepatopancreatoduodenectomy, that is, en bloc hepatic resection with pancreatoduodenectomy. They included 14 cases of gallbladder carcinoma, nine cases of bile duct carcinoma, and one case of double cancer of the gallbladder and the bile duct. Eleven kinds of hepatic lobectomy or segmentectomy with pancreatoduodenectomy were carried out, and the caudate lobe was also removed en bloc from 17 patients with carcinoma involving the hepatic hilus. Combined resection of the portal vein was performed in 11 patients, of the inferior vena cava in 2, and of the colon in 5, patients. Forty-four postoperative complications occurred in 22 patients (91.7%). The operative mortality rate was 12.5% (3/24). The median survival and the 2-year survival rate were 7.0 months and 17.9% for all 24 patients, including 3 operative deaths, or 11.0 months and 20.4% for 21 patients surviving hepatopancreatoduodenectomy, and 12.4 months and 20.8% for all 14 patients with gallbladder carcinoma, and 5.2 months and 14.8% for all 9 patients with bile duct carcinoma. The longest survivor died of recurrent tumors at 5 years and 7 months. Hepatopancreatoduodenectomy offered not only an unexpectedly long survival period, but also unexpected morbidity in some cases.