Clinical characteristics and prognosis of early-onset cholangiocarcinoma: a population-based study

Little is known about the disease of early-onset cholangiocarcinoma (EOC). The primary objective of this study was to compare EOC with later-onset cholangiocarcinoma (LOC) concerning clinical features and survival prognosis.

19325 cholangiocarcinoma patients were extracted from 1975 to 2020 in the SEER database. Cox regression analysis and Kaplan-Meier survival curves were used for the evaluation of cause-specific survival (CSS) and overall survival (OS). To reduce confounding, we compared survival differences between the EOC and LOC groups using propensity score matching (PSM).

4037 cholangiocarcinoma patients were included in the study, of which 274 were EOC and 3763 were LOC. Early-onset patients were more likely to be non-white, and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. At diagnosis, patients had advanced AJCC stage, lymph node metastase and distant metastase. The EOC patients were more likely to receive surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy than later-onset patients. Multifactorial COX analysis indicated that EOC patients had lower mortality risk than later-onset patients, and similar results were obtained after PSM; Kaplan-Meier survival curves corroborated that early-onset patients exhibited better OS than later-onset patients, and this survival advantage persisted after PSM. Further subgroup analysis following matching demonstrated that early-onset patients had better OS than later-onset patients in the surgical subgroup, while there were no statistically significant differences in the radiotherapy and chemotherapy subgroups.

The EOC patients typically exhibit an intrahepatic presentation and generally experience a more favorable prognosis. Surgery emerged as a critical treatment modality significantly influencing the overall prognosis of EOC.