[Surgical therapy of proximal bile duct cancer]

During the past 13 years a total of 60 patients (33 male, 27 female, median age 64.8 years) were operated upon and 21 of these patients underwent resection with a resectability rate of 35%. The remaining 39 patients had a palliative procedure. In 7 patients some form of bypass procedure was performed. 25 patients underwent some form of drainage procedure and in 7 patients only an explorative laparotomy was undertaken. Patients having resection surgery had a postoperative complication rate of 29% and there were 2 postoperative deaths (9.5%). The complication rate in the palliation group was 38%. The mean survival time in patients operated on with surgical resection was 34.1 months, palliative procedures 4.8 months and in patients with nonresectable tumors 3.6 months. In the resection group (n = 21) curative resection (= R0-resection) was performed in 14 patients, whereas in 7 patients there was a histologically invasion of the bile duct (= R1-resection). The mean survival time in the R0-group was 45.7 months and 11.8 months in the R1-group (Breslow p less than 0.0098, Mantel-Cox p less than 0.0070). We conclude that radical surgical resection offers the best possibility of prolonged survival with a good quality of life in patients with hilar cancer.