Outcomes of aggressive treatment of stage IV gallbladder cancer and predictors of survival.

Objective: Stage IV gallbladder carcinoma patients are rarely considered treatable by resection. They resign themselves to palliation because there is no long-term survival data available on the risks of morbidity and mortality following aggressive treatment. The aim of this study was to evaluate predictors of survival following aggressive resection surgery for stage IV gallbladder carcinoma.

Methods: In this retrospective study, we examined 93 patients with stage IV gallbladder carcinoma who had undergone resections. Of the 93 patients, 69 had undergone liver resection to various extents together with hepaticocholedochus resection (HCR); 2 had undergone pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD) both with and without HCR; 31 had undergone hepatopancreaticoduodenectomy (HPD); 7 had undergone cholecystectomy together with HCR; 12 had undergone cholecystectomy; and 3 had undergone extended cholecystectomy. Fifty of the 93 patients had also undergone adjuvant radiotherapy. Using univariate and multivariate analyses, 13 clinicopathologic risk factors were analyzed to predict survival.

Results: Operative morbidity and mortality rates were 17.2% and 5.4%, respectively. Overall, the 5-year survival rate and median survival time were 9.8% and 243 days, respectively. The 5-year survival rate was significantly higher in stage IVA (n = 17) than in stage IVB (n = 76), at 42.8% and 4.9%, respectively. Multivariate analysis revealed that sex, histopathologic type, lymph node involvement (N), subgroup of stage IV, post-resection residual tumors, and adjuvant radiotherapy were significant predictors of survival.

Conclusions: Long-term survival, with acceptable mortality and morbidity, can be expected in female patients who have stage IVA gallbladder cancer consisting of well-differentiated adenocarcinoma and who undergo either complete microscopic resection or grossly complete resection followed by adjuvant radiotherapy.