Evaluation of aggressive surgery for carcinoma of the extrahepatic bile ducts

The records of 80 consecutive patients with extrahepatic bile duct cancer, 45 women and 35 men, median age 70 years (33-89 years), were reviewed. The histologic diagnoses were adenocarcinoma in 45 patients, 34 cholangiocarcinoma and one squamous cell carcinoma. In 34 patients the tumor was located to the confluence, the right or left hepatic duct, in 16 to the middle and in four to the distal portion of the bile duct. In the remaining 26 patients the tumor comprised more than one of these locations (mixed location). Twenty-seven of the 80 patients (34%) were operated on with resection of the tumor. Among patients 70 years of age and younger the resectability rate was 57%. In nine patients the main surgical procedure was bile duct resection, in 15 patients bile duct resection and liver lobe resection, in 2 patients total pancreatectomy and in one local excision were performed. The resection of the tumor was regarded as radical in 12 patients and palliative in 15. The mortality rate was 11% after resection as compared to 30% in patients with nonresectable tumors. The most common postoperative complication was insufficiency of the anastomosis which occurred in seven patients. Three of these patients required reoperation. The median survival time in patients operated on with radical resection was 20 months, palliative resection 7(1/2) months and in patients with nonresectable tumors 2(1/2) months. The quality of life was estimated according to a special schedule and was found to be improved after resection as compared to nonresection. Patients operated with radical resection spent significantly less of their remaining life at hospital as compared to palliatively resected patients or patients with nonresectable tumors.