Squamous-Cell Gallbladder Carcinoma: How to Treat?

Abstract

Squamous-cell gallbladder carcinoma is a very rare cancer with very few therapeutic data available in the literature. We describe a case of this rare disease with a good response under Gemcitabine and Cisplatin after several previous lines of chemotherapy, in an 80-year-old man. In our case, the disease was resistant to FOLFOX, FOLFIRI and Paclitaxel but an impressive partial response was shown after 9 cycles of Gemcitabine and Cisplatin in fourth-line of chemotherapy. Unfortunately, a progression occurred after 12 cycles (7 months). With the intent of finding a new therapeutic option a molecular analysis was performed using Next-Generation Sequencing and two mutations of ERBB2 and PTEN were found. A standard regimen of chemotherapy for squamous-cell gallbladder cancer does not exist and, because of the rarity of this type of cancer, therapeutic trials will probably never be conducted. The end point of this works is to describe this interesting case and make a review of the literature about treatments used for squamous-cell carcinoma of the gallbladder.