Do patients with bile duct cancer use chemotherapy after surgery?

Generally speaking, any kind of malignant tumor requires chemotherapy after surgery. Surgery only removes the diseased part, but the cancer cells in the body still exist. The role of chemotherapy is to kill all the cancer cells in the body and give the patient a new life. Today, I will answer the question of whether patients with bile duct cancer need chemotherapy after surgery.

The main treatments for bile duct cancer include:

1. Surgical treatment. The treatment principle of bile duct cancer is: surgical resection is the main treatment for early cases, followed by radiotherapy and chemotherapy to consolidate and improve the effect of surgical treatment. For advanced cases that cannot be resected, biliary drainage surgery should be performed to control bile duct infection, improve liver function, reduce complications, prolong life, and improve quality of life.

2. Radiotherapy. Surgical resection is the only radical treatment for cholangiocarcinoma. Adjuvant radiotherapy can only improve the patient's survival rate. For unresectable and locally metastatic cholangiocarcinoma, radiotherapy can improve the patient's symptoms and prolong life after effective biliary drainage. However, cholangiocarcinoma has always been considered a tumor that is insensitive to radiation. The median survival period of radiotherapy is generally reported to be 9 to 12 months.

3. Chemotherapy : Cholangiocarcinoma is not sensitive to chemotherapy. It is less sensitive to chemotherapy than other gastrointestinal tumors such as colon cancer. However, chemotherapy may relieve the symptoms caused by cholangiocarcinoma, improve the quality of life of patients, and may also prolong survival.

Cholangiocarcinoma is highly malignant and has a poor prognosis. Radical surgical resection is currently the only way to cure cholangiocarcinoma. The five-year survival rate after radical resection of cholangiocarcinoma is between 20% and 43%, and the survival rate after radical resection is basically similar regardless of the site of occurrence. However, the vast majority of patients with cholangiocarcinoma who cannot undergo surgical resection often die within 1 year, and their prognosis is extremely poor. Cholangiocarcinoma surgery is relatively complex and difficult, and radical surgical resection is clearly related to the prognosis of the disease. Therefore, it is recommended that medical institutions with rich experience perform corresponding standardized radical surgery.

To sum up, patients with bile duct cancer need chemotherapy after surgery. I wish you good health!