Gallbladder cancer medical therapy
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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]Associate Editor(s)-in-Chief: Parminder Dhingra, M.D. [2]
Overview
The therapy for gallbladder cancer depends largely on the disease progression and the stage of cancer.
Medical Therapy
There are different types of treatment for patients with gallbladder cancer.
- Surgery
- Radiation therapy
- Chemotherapy
- New types of treatment are being tested in clinical trials
- Radiation sensitizers
Radiation sensitizers
Clinical trials are studying ways to improve the effect of radiation therapy on tumor cells, including the following:
- Hyperthermia therapy: A treatment in which body tissue is exposed to high temperatures to damage and kill cancer cells or to make cancer cells more sensitive to the effects of radiation therapy and certain anticancer drugs.
- Radiosensitizers: Drugs that make tumor cells more sensitive to radiation therapy. Giving radiation therapy together with radiosensitizers may kill more tumor cells.
Localized gallbladder cancer treatment
- Surgery to remove the gallbladder and some of the tissue around it. Part of the liver and nearby lymph nodes may also be removed
- Radiation therapy with or without chemotherapy may follow surgery
- Radiation therapy with or without chemotherapy
- A clinical trial of radiation therapy with radiosensitizers[1]
Unresectable, Recurrent, or Metastatic Gallbladder Cancer treatment
- Percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage or the placement of stents to relieve symptoms caused by blocked bile ducts. This may be followed by radiation therapy as palliative treatment.
- Surgery as palliative treatment to relieve symptoms caused by blocked bile ducts.
- Chemotherapy.