[Biliary tract carcinomas. I. Gallbladder cancer]

In three successive papers the clinical, diagnostic and surgical possibilities of biliary tract carcinoma are discussed on the base of 119 patients, undergone operation at the Chair of Abdominal Surgery for the period 1952-1979: 52 (44%) with gallbladder carcinoma, 48 (40% with biliary ducts carcinoma and 19 (16%) with duodenal papilla carcinoma. The authors report that gallbladder carcinoma is most frequent - 4.4 per cent of all biliary operations. The ratio males: females is 1:3 and the highest number of the patients is over the age of 60. The diagnosis is usually made with 6 months later due to the atypical clinical picture, progressing under the mask of cholelithiasis, found in 70-100 per cent of the cases. That is the reason in 5 per cent of the cases that carcinoma involved the whole gallbladder, metastases and infiltration of the adjacent organs being frequent. Resectable proved to be only 9 patients, the mortality rate kept high. A complex diagnostics is recommended with present-day methods and early prophylactic cholecystectomy in case of calculosis.