Surgery for carcinoma of the gallbladder

Background/Aims: Carcinoma of the gallbladder is one of the gastrointestinal malignancies with an extraordinarily poor prognosis. The 5-year survival rate amounts to less than 5 per cent in most series. Our aim was to analyze the experience of a single center with surgery for gallbladder carcinoma with special reference to liver wedge resection. Materials and Methods: A retrospective analysis examined all patients of the Clinic of Surgery of the Humboldt University Medical School (Charite) with diagnosed gallbladder carcinoma operated on between January 1981 and August 1993. The analysis was based on patient documentation. Cumulative survival rates were calculated according to the method of Kaplan/Meier. Statistical significances were calculated using logrank and Wilcoxon's tests. Results: Eighty one patients (61 female, 20 male) were included in the study. The preoperative diagnoses were confirmed in 33 patients (40.7 %). The stage distribution according to the TNM-system revealed 6, 10, 12, and 53 patients at the stages I-IV, respectively. The curative resection rate was 22.2 %. Stage-dependent surgical procedures resulted in cumulative survival rates of 33.3 % for stages I and II, 8.3 % for stage III and 1.9 % for stage IV. The overall prognosis was significantly determined by metastatic spread to the lymph nodes. Conclusions: Diagnostic efforts should focus on detecting the low stages I and II of gallbladder carcinoma. Our results suggest that aggressive surgical management with second intervention and wedge resection or more extended liver resection is the method of choice for stage T1b or more advanced stages of gallbladder carcinoma.