Diagnosis and treatment of cholangiocellular carcinoma of the liver.

Abstract

Of the 239 patients with primary liver cancer treated in our department over the last 13 years, 27 had cholangiocellular carcinoma, and 4 cystic adenocarcinoma of the liver. In this paper, the diagnosis and treatment of cholangiocellular carcinoma was reviewed and discussed. Twenty-four (88.9%) of the 27 patients with cholangiocellular carcinoma underwent surgery and 16 (66.7%) had hepatic resection. There were no operative deaths. None with hilar type cancer survived more than 2 years but in the case of the peripheral type the one-year cumulative survival rate after hepatectomy was 63.6%, the 3- and 5-year rates were both 33.9%. Two cases survived more than 5 years. One was a 69-year-old female who died of tumor recurrence 5 years and 6 months after hepatectomy; the other a 61-year-old female who is still alive and well, without recurrence, 10 years and 5 months after right trisegmentectomy. Although the cholangiocellular carcinoma in our series were in the advanced stages, good results were obtained by hepatic resection with multimodal treatment.