[Is gallbladder cancer a disease with bad prognosis?].
Gallbladder cancer is frequent in Chile, but it is not uniformly mortal. The diagnosis is usually made after a cholecystectomy, indicated for a symptomatic cholelithiasis. Global survival of gallbladder cancer can be as high as 40% at five years. In 69% of women of less than 30 years old, the tumor is detected in early stages. In these cases, cholecystectomy is the curative procedure, with a 90% survival at five years. According to our experience, cholecystectomies should be performed between 40 and 50 years of age in men and between 30 and 40 years in women. The prognostic factors that should be considered are symptoms associated to lithiasis, age, parity, obesity, size of stones and the size of the gallbladder. If the tumor is detected in early stages, the survival is good. The natural history of the disease would change significantly if all women with symptomatic stones were operated.
Roa
Iván
I
Departamento de Anatomía Patológica y Cirugía, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de la Frontera. Iroa@ufro.cl
de Aretxabala
Xabier
X
Roa
Juan
J
Araya
Juan C
JC
Villaseca
Miguel
M
Guzmán
Pablo
P
Burgos
Luis
L
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002677:Chile / Q000453:epidemiology; D002763:Cholecystectomy; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D005260:Female; D005706:Gallbladder Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000401:mortality* / Q000601:surgery; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis