Outcome of radical surgery for stage IV gallbladder carcinoma

Background/Purpose

The role of aggressive surgery for patients with stage IV gallbladder carcinoma was examined.

Methods

Cancers were classified according to the TNM system of the Japanese Society of Biliary Surgery. The survival of 37 patients with stage IV cancer (stage IVa, n = 15; stage IVb, n = 22) treated by surgical resection during the period January 1990 to December 2004 was examined and compared with the survival of 41 patients with stage IV disease not treated by surgical resection during the same period.

Results

The postoperative survival rate was significantly better for patients with resected stage IVa cancer than for patients with resected stage IVb disease and for those with nonresected stage IV disease. Survival in patients with N3 lymph node metastasis, liver metastasis, peritoneal dissemination, or vascular invasion was poor, like that in the nonresected group. Surgical resection without residual tumors (curability A and B) yielded a significantly better outcome than that with residual tumor (curability C). There were three 5-year survivors that were treated successfully by curative resection (curability A and B) and all had T4N0 disease.

Conclusions

These results suggest that surgical resection significantly improves survival even in patients with stage IV gallbladder carcinoma when N3 metastasis, liver metastasis, peritoneal dissemination, and vascular invasion are absent. Curative resection can be expected to produce long-term survival in selected patients with stage IV gallbladder carcinoma.