Adjuvant treatment in biliary tract cancer: to treat or not to treat?

ABSTRACT: Biliary tract cancer is a rare malignant tumor. There is limited knowledge about biology and natural history of this disease and considerable uncertainty remains regarding its optimal diagnostic and therapeutic management. The role of adjuvant therapy is object of debate and controversy. Although resection is identified as the most effective and the only potentially curative treatment, there is no consensus on the impact of adjuvant chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy on the high incidence of disease recurrence and on survival. This is mainly due to the rarity of this disease and the consequent difficulty in performing randomized trials. The only two prospectively controlled trials concluded that adjuvant chemotherapy did not improve survival. Most of the retrospective trials, which had limit

SUBMITTER: Cereda S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3369994 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature