title: Is gall bladder cancer a bad cancer per se?
abstract: Gall bladder cancer (GBC) has one of the poorest outcomes of all cancers. Early GBC is difficult to diagnose on even computed tomography. GB has no submucosa and the cancer infiltrates directly into the muscularis propria. GB wall is thin and important adjacent organs viz. liver, duodenum and pancreas get easily infiltrated. Tumor in the GB neck often needs extended right hepatectomy. Infiltration of duodenum/pancreas may necessitate pancreato-duodenectomy or even hepato-pancreato-duodenectomy. Mortality of surgical procedures, when performed for GBC, is higher than when performed for other cancers. Survival in GBC, even after R0 resection, is poor. There is no proven role of neo-adjuvant or adjuvant therapy for loco-regionally advanced GBC. There is no role of palliative surgery in metastatic GBC. Early GBC is diagnosed incidentally after cholecystectomy for stones and requires reoperation for completion extended cholecystectomy but unfortunately, most surgeons are not aware of this. GBC has a peculiar epidemiology and is uncommon in the West and has, therefore, not received much attention. Preventive cholecystectomy for asymptomatic stones is not recommended and there is no serum marker for screening. With all factors pitched against it, it does appear that GBC is a bad cancer per se!
authors.affiliation: Vinay K Kapoor, Surgical Gastroenterology, Sanjay Gandhi Post-graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow 226014, Uttar Pradesh, India.
authors.forename: Vinay K
authors.initials: VK
authors.lastname: Kapoor
keywords: Cholangiocarcinoma; Cholecystectomy; Gall bladder neoplasms; Hepatectomy; Hepato-pancreato-duodenectomy