Clinicopathologic characteristics of young patients with gallbladder cancer

Gallbladder cancer is the most common biliary tract cancer and the fifth most common cancer of the digestive system. However, the clinicopathologic features of gallbladder cancer in young Korean patients have not been studied. This study included 101 consecutive cases of gallbladder cancer that underwent cholecystectomy at Kangbuk Samsung Hospital from December 1990 to March 2011. The patients were divided into two groups by age at initial diagnosis of gallbladder cancer: a young patient group aged less than 45 years and an old patient group aged 45 or older. The young patient group included 10 patients with mean age of 38 (range, 29-44 years). Compared with the old patient group, the young patient group showed polypoid tumor appearance (p=0.014), lower pT stage (p=0.023), more frequent adenoma background (p=0.009), and less frequent dysplasia in remaining mucosa (p=0.001). The disease-related survival rate after 13.5 months was significantly more favorable for the young patients. Gallbladder cancers in young Korean patients have distinct clinicopathologic features of a high frequency of cancer arising in adenoma, rare association with intestinal metaplasia and dysplasia, and a favorable patient's prognosis. These findings suggest that the adenoma-carcinoma pathway could contribute more to gallbladder cancer carcinogenesis in young Korean patients than the metaplasia-dysplasia-carcinoma pathway.