Carcinoma of gallbladder. A review of 62 surgical patients

Sixty-two patient with carcinoma of gallbladder have been operated on at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital over an 11-year period. There were 39 females and 23 males, whose ages ranged from 28 to 91 (average: 59). The most common presenting symptoms were abdominal pain, jaundice and weight loss. Twenty-three patients had accompanying gall stones (37%). Nevin's classification of invasion depth revealed 3.2% at Stage I; 4.8% at Stage II; 11.3%, Stage III; 6.4%, Stage IV and 74.3% at Stage V. Operative procedures included 7 cholecystectomy, 14 cholecystectomy and choledochotomy, 18 bile drainage and biopsy, 12 laparotomy and biopsy, and liver resection with cholecystectomy and lymph node dissection in 11 cases. The operative mortality rate was 6.4%. Three patients are still alive (Stage I: 11 years; Stage II: 6.8 years and 4.9 years respectively). Prognosis for patients with carcinoma of gallbladder was highly influenced by the stage of the tumor, but not by the presence of stone, preoperative diagnosis, histology type or operative procedure in our series.