Characteristics and outcomes of gallbladder cancer patients at the Tata Medical Center, Kolkata 2017–2019

• Published in: Cancer medicine (Malden, MA) Vol. 12; no. 8; pp. 9293 - 9302
• Main Authors: Dutta, Anindita, Mungle, Tushar, Chowdhury, Nandita, Banerjee, Pritha, Gehani, Anisha, Sen, Saugata, Mallath, Mohandas, Roy, Paromita, Krishnan, Shekhar, Ganguly, Sandip, Banerjee, Sudeep, Roy, Manas, Saha, Vaskar
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.04.2023; John Wiley and Sons Inc; Wiley
• Subjects: Aged; Body mass index; Cancer therapies; Carcinoma in Situ - pathology; Chemotherapy; Cholecystectomy; Clinical trials; clinicopathology; Combined Modality Therapy; Diabetes; Electronic health records; Electronic medical records; Family medical history; Female; Females; Gallbladder cancer; Gallbladder diseases; Gallbladder Neoplasms - diagnosis; Gallbladder Neoplasms - epidemiology; Gallbladder Neoplasms - therapy; Gallstones; Hospitals; Humans; Hypertension; Hypothyroidism; Laboratories; Liver; Male; Medical records; Metastasis; Middle Aged; Neoplasm Staging; Pathology; Patients; Retrospective Studies; Survival; treatment; Tumors; India; clinicopathology; treatment; gallbladder cancer; electronic medical records
• ISSN: 2045-7634; 2045-7634
• DOI: 10.1002/cam4.5677

Background The north and north‐eastern regions of India have among the highest incidence of gallbladder cancer (GBC) in the world. We report the clinicopathological charateristics and outcome of GBC patients in India. Methods Electronic medical records of patients diagnosed with GBC at Tata Medical Center, Kolkata between 2017 and 2019 were analyzed. Results There were 698 cases of confirmed GBC with a median age of 58 (IQR: 50–65) years and female:male ratio of 1.96. At presentation, 91% (496/544) had stage III/IV disease and 30% (189/640) had incidental GBC. The 2‐year overall survival (OS) was 100% (95% CI: 100–100); 61% (95% CI: 45–83); 30% (95% CI: 21–43); and 9% (95% CI: 6–13) for stages I–IV, respectively (p = <0.0001).   For all patients, the 2‐year OS in patients who had a radical cholecystectomy followed by adjuvant therapy (N = 36) was 50% (95% CI: 39–64), compared to 29% (95% CI: 22–38) for those who had a simple cholecystectomy and/or chemotherapy (N = 265) and 9% (95% CI: 6–14) in patients who were palliated (N = 107) (p = <0.0001). Conclusion The combined surgical/chemotherapy approach for patients with stage II GBC showed the best outcomes. Early detection of GBC remains problematic with the majority of patients presenting with stage III–IV and who have a median survival of 9.1 months. Our data suggests that the tumor is chemoresponsive and multi‐center collaborative clinical trials to identify alternative therapies are urgently required. The curative approach for gallbladder cancer (GBC) is radical cholecystectomy with adjuvant chemotherapy. GBC has non‐specific symptoms, so screening/early detection is not possible. We report that 90% of GBC patients presented with late‐stage inoperable disease. Patients with late‐stage disease who received chemotherapy had significantly better survival over those who did not (p < 0.0001). Our real‐world data suggests that GBC is a chemosensitive disease. Clinical trials in low‐middle income countries to reposition available therapies are urgently required.