title: Whole-exome sequencing of 103 intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma patients
design: Clinicopathological Characteristics of ICC patients. We analyzed a cohort of 103 ICC patients who underwent surgical dissection for ICC in the Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital of the Second Military Medical University (Shanghai, China) between March 2009 and March 2011. Most of these 103 ICC patients are from the provinces close to Shanghai including Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui provinces. This cohort represents so far the largest sample size in a genome-wide sequencing project targeting the relatively rare cancer ICC. The diagnosis of ICC was confirmed by pathological assessment. By definition, ICC is a bile duct carcinoma that arises from either the second-order or more peripheral branches of the intrahepatic bile duct. Thus patients with gallbladder cancer, perihilar cholangiocarcinoma, or cholangiocarcinoma that could not be clearly classified as intrahepatic or perihilar cholangiocarcinoma were excluded from this study.