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Gallbladder Cancer

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Surgical Oncology Manual

Abstract

Gallbladder cancer is an aggressive though rare disease in the Western population, with great incidence variability compared to countries in East Asia and South America. It is a silent malignancy, developing in a chronically inflamed gallbladder mucosa, most generally defined by gallstones disease.

Almost 50% of patients with gallbladder cancer are diagnosed unexpectedly after a cholecystectomy for benign acute/chronic cholecystitis.

Curative treatment is limited among these incidentally diagnosed patients with important residual disease or those with evidence of locally advanced disease on initial presentation.

Most data arise from retrospective studies with reduced number of patients, with mixed histologies, including cholangiocarcinoma.

The lack of randomized clinical trials (RCT) focused on gallbladder cancer creates a burden to determine the best, evidence-based multimodal approach.

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Correspondence to Melanie E. Tsang .

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Devaud, N., Coburn, N.G., Tsang, M.E. (2020). Gallbladder Cancer. In: Wright, F., Escallon, J., Cukier, M., Tsang, M., Hameed, U. (eds) Surgical Oncology Manual. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48363-0_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48363-0_10

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