A reappraisal of primary gallbladder carcinoma

291

Sixty-six cases of carcinoma of the gallbladder treated at The Memorial Hospital, Danville, Virginia, and the Medical College of Virginia, Richmond, were staged according to depth of invasion and spread and graded histologically; the findings were correlated with survival. Results from the two hospitals were essentially identical and the survival figures correlated well with 399 reported cases in the medical literature which could be staged according to the depth of invasion. A simple method combining staging and histologic grading of cancer of the gallbladder, which can easily be applied to all cancers of the gallbladder removed surgically and which should prove useful in the management of this disease, is described. Essentially all of the carcinomas of the gallbladder in the series were incidental findings at surgery for gall stones which may explain a relatively high proportion of superficial carcinomas which are cured by the removal of the gallbladder.

Carcinoma of the gallbladder. Staging, treatment, and prognosis

Nevin

Moran

Kay

et al. 1976

291

Natural history study of gallbladder cancer.A review of 36 years experience at M. D. Anderson hospital and tumor institute

Perpetuo

Valdivieso

Heilbrun

et al. 1978

151

Seventy-five patients with gallbladder cancer referred to our institution over a 36-year period were studied. They represented 0.08% of all hospital admissions over the period of study. The disease was most common in older females (median age, 62 years). Ninety-seven percent of patients had a pre-existing clinical history of recurrent right upper quadrant pain suggestive of cholecystitis for a median duration of 3 years (range, 4 days to 25 years). Ninetyeight percent of patients whose records had adequate clinical, surgical or postmortem information had gallstones. Laparotomy was diagnostic in 100% of the patients. The cell type in all patients was adenocarcinoma. Surgery was curative in only 5% of patients. Results of chemotherapy, mainly 5fluorouracil, were poor. The median survival for all patients was 5.2 months. Survival was slightly better for males, for patients younger than 62 years of age, and for patients with good performance status. At postmortem, most patients had metastases to the liver (91 %) and intraabdominal lymph nodes (82 %). Metastases to extraabdominal organs were infrequent.Cancer 42:330-335, 1978.

Gallbladder cancer in Hispanic New Mexicans I. General population, 1957–1977

Devor

Buechley

1980

Many studies report unusually high rates of gallbladder cancer among all American Indians and among Hispanic Americans in the Southwest and California. It has been suggested that there is a strong genetic component to the development of this cancer in American Indians and that the high rates among Hispanics are a result of genetic admixture with Indian groups. In this paper, we review the epidemiologic characteristics of gallbladder cancer in New Mexico's Hispanic population. We discuss the genetic study of the residents of the Abiquiu area of Rio Arriba County in northern New Mexico where the incidence of gallbladder cancer in white residents is significantly higher than that in any other county of the state. The Abiquiu population has a high degree of Indian ancestry, is genetically isolated, and shows close inbreeding. This combination has produced elevated frequencies of the allele or alleles predisposing to gallbladder cancer. Two familial aggregations of this disease, the first such aggregations to be reported, appear among these people.