Incidental gallbladder cancers: Our clinical experience and review of the literature
Yiğit Düzköylü, Hasan Bektaş, Zeynep Deniz Kozluklu
Clinic of General Surgery, Ministry of Health İstanbul Training and Research Hospital, İstanbul, Turkey
Abstract
Objective: Gallbladder carcinomas are rare and aggressive neoplasms. They are usually advanced at the time of diagnosis. We aimed to evaluate incidental gallbladder cancers in our clinic, in terms of patients’ demographics, diagnosis, treatment and follow-up, and compared our results with the literature.
Material and Methods: Patients who underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy in the last 9 years were retrospectively reviewed, and features of the patients diagnosed with gallbladder cancer after histopathological evaluation were further evaluated.
Results: Thirteen patients were female and two were male. The mean age was 67 years. Additional treatment was applied in seven patients. All patients were operated on laparoscopically, with conversion to open surgery in four patients. The rate of incidental gallbladder cancer was 0.17% in our patients. Survival rates were found to be 22.2% in patients who had been operated at least 5 years ago.
Conclusion: Surgery is the only curative treatment in gallbladder cancers; however, they are usually at advanced stages at the time of diagnosis. In incidental gallbladder cancers, survival can be prolonged with appropriate treatment models if they are identified at early stages. The relatively low rates that have been reported in our population may be due to geographical differences and problems in study design.
Keywords: Incidental, gallbladder, cancer
We did not have an ethic committee approval because of the fact that it was a retrospective study, and we acquired the data from patients’ files.
We did not have patients’ consents because of the fact that it was a retrospective study.
Externally peer-reviewed.
Concept - Y.D., H.B.; Design - Y.D., H.B., Z.D.K.; Supervision - H.B.; Funding - Z.D.K., Y.D.; Materials - Y.D., Z.D.K.; Data Collection and/or Processing - Z.D.K.; Analysis and/or Interpretation - Y.D., H.B.; Literature Review - Y.D., Z.D.K.; Writer - Y.D., H.B., Z.D.K.; Critical Review - H.B.
No conflict of interest was declared by the authors.
The authors declared that this study has received no financial support.