Laparoscopic liver resection for patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma using data from the Japanese National...

Since 2011, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) has made the data from the National Database of Health Insurance Claims and Specific Health Checkups of Japan (NDB) available for research purposes. Recent trends in treatments and prognosis for intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) were analyzed using data from this comprehensive database. This repeated cross-sectional study employed NDB open data to determine the number of patients with ICC and those treated for ICC from fiscal years (FY) 2016 to 2020. The International Classification of Diseases version 10 (ICD-10) code of C22.1 (ICC) was used to define ICC patients. The number of patients diagnosed with ICC and treated in Japan did not change during the study period (FY2016: 1,119; FY2017: 1,136; FY2018: 1,213; FY2019: 1,185; FY2020: 1,194). The number of patients who underwent open liver resection (OLR) did not change either (FY2016: 748; FY2017: 771; FY2018: 807; FY2019: 760; FY2020: 753). On the other hand, patients who underwent laparoscopic liver resection (LLR) increased during the study period (FY2016: 84; FY2017: 118; FY2018: 143; FY2019: 171; FY2020: 195). This was primarily due to the increase in the number of patients who received laparoscopic liver resection larger than subsegmentectomy (FY2016, 57; FY2017, 81; FY2018, 98; FY2019, 101; FY2020, 133). The median postoperative survival was 5.25 years in the OLR group and was not reached in the LLR group. The national database analysis revealed that while the number of patients diagnosed with and treated for ICC has remained stable, the adoption of minimally invasive surgery has increased, possibly because of advancements in treatment techniques, resulting in good survival outcomes.