Adjuvant Chemotherapy vs no Chemotherapy for Patients With GallBllader Carcinoma

Carcinoma of the gallbladder is the commonest malignancy of the biliary tract. Higher incidence has been noted in Chile, Mexico and Southwest American Indians.\[1\] It is the third most common malignancy in India.\[2\] The disease may mimic benign disease in presentation.Up to 1/3rd of patients may present with jaundice but of these only 7% will be resectable.\[4\] With aggressive surgical resection, actuarial 5 year survival of 83% for stage II disease and 63% for stage III have been reported.\[5\] Treatment of choice is complete surgical resection. The role of chemotherapy and radiotherapy is not very well documented in treatment of gallbladder cancer. Because of the propensity of gallbladder carcinoma to spread to regional lymph nodes at an early stage and the high rate of loco regional recurrence, adjuvant chemotherapy or chemo-radiotherapy seems a rational therapeutic option. Gemcitabine with or without Cisplatin has been increasingly used. In a recent paper Gemcitabine with Cisplatin was found to be more effective than gemcitabine alone and provides definite survival advantage and progression free survival.\[6\] An earlier randomized trial done to assess the efficacy of the adjuvant chemotherapy for the pancreato-biliary cancer reported improvement in disease free and overall 5 year survival.\[7\] But this study has included patients with suboptimal resection and all pancreato-biliary malignancy. In view of these observations this study is being designed to assess the efficacy of the chemotherapy in the adjuvant setting in gallbladder cancer patients who have undergone curative resections.

Sex

All

Minimum age

18 Years

Maximum age

75 Years

Inclusion Criteria:

1. T1b and above adenocarcinoma of gall bladder
2. Patients undergoing curative resection
3. Incidentally diagnosed carcinoma who have undergone curative completion radical cholecystectomy

Exclusion Criteria:

1. T1a tumors
2. Patients with metastatic disease
3. Patients unfit to undergo chemotherapy
4. Patients unwilling to undergo the trial
5. Patients with double cancers

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• BACKGROUNDShukla VK, Khandelwal C, Roy SK, Vaidya MP. Primary carcinoma of the gall bladder: a review of a 16-year period at the University Hospital. J Surg Oncol. 1985 Jan;28(1):32-5. doi: 10.1002/jso.2930280109. PMID 3968886
• BACKGROUNDHamrick RE Jr, Liner FJ, Hastings PR, Cohn I Jr. Primary carcinoma of the gallbladder. Ann Surg. 1982 Mar;195(3):270-3. doi: 10.1097/00000658-198203000-00005. PMID 7059239
• BACKGROUNDHawkins WG, DeMatteo RP, Jarnagin WR, Ben-Porat L, Blumgart LH, Fong Y. Jaundice predicts advanced disease and early mortality in patients with gallbladder cancer. Ann Surg Oncol. 2004 Mar;11(3):310-5. doi: 10.1245/aso.2004.03.011. PMID 14993027
• BACKGROUNDBartlett DL, Fong Y, Fortner JG, Brennan MF, Blumgart LH. Long-term results after resection for gallbladder cancer. Implications for staging and management. Ann Surg. 1996 Nov;224(5):639-46. doi: 10.1097/00000658-199611000-00008. PMID 8916879
• BACKGROUNDValle J, Wasan H, Palmer DH, Cunningham D, Anthoney A, Maraveyas A, Madhusudan S, Iveson T, Hughes S, Pereira SP, Roughton M, Bridgewater J; ABC-02 Trial Investigators. Cisplatin plus gemcitabine versus gemcitabine for biliary tract cancer. N Engl J Med. 2010 Apr 8;362(14):1273-81. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa0908721. PMID 20375404
• BACKGROUNDTakada T, Amano H, Yasuda H, Nimura Y, Matsushiro T, Kato H, Nagakawa T, Nakayama T; Study Group of Surgical Adjuvant Therapy for Carcinomas of the Pancreas and Biliary Tract. Is postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy useful for gallbladder carcinoma? A phase III multicenter prospective randomized controlled trial in patients with resected pancreaticobiliary carcinoma. Cancer. 2002 Oct 15;95(8):1685-95. doi: 10.1002/cncr.10831.