Diagnosis and treatment update: cholangiocarcinoma

Cholangiocarcinoma is a rare and very aggressive neoplasm that arises from the biliary epithelium, constitutes approximately 2% of all reported cancer, and accounts for about 3% of all gastrointestinal malignancies. Up to date, there are many modalities to diagnosis and treat with a range of sensitivity and specificity, and also the advantage and disadvantage of its modality. As a physician, we should be able to assess and choose promptly which modality is best for our patient, even for paliative care. Treatment modalities are surgery and non-surgery like adjuvant chemotherapy, radiation, chemoradiation, radiotherapy, TACE, 5-FU chemoinfusion, intralesion PEI, photodynamic therapy, liver transplantation, and paliative therapy. The choice of treatment varies individually. Radical surgery remains the optimal therapy and offering a potential for cure. Overall prognosis in these patients is poor and survival is limited to a few months.