help button home button The Oncologist http://theoncologist.alphamedpress.org/subscriptions/etoc.dtl
HOME HELP CONTACT US SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Oncologist, Vol. 13, No. 4, 415-423, April 2008; doi:10.1634/theoncologist.2007-0252
© 2008 AlphaMed Press

This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow CME: Take the course for this article:
 Systemic Therapy for Biliary Tract Cancers
Right arrow eLetters: Submit a response to this article
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when eLetters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow E-mail this article link to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Reprints/Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Hezel, A. F.
Right arrow Articles by Zhu, A. X.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Hezel, A. F.
Right arrow Articles by Zhu, A. X.

Hepatobiliary

Systemic Therapy for Biliary Tract Cancers

Aram F. Hezel, Andrew X. Zhu

Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Key Words. Cholangiocarcinoma • Gallbladder cancer • Chemotherapy • Bile duct cancer

Correspondence: Aram F. Hezel, M.D., or Andrew X. Zhu, M.D., Ph.D., Tucker Gosnell Center for Gastrointestinal Cancers, Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Lawrence House/POB 232, Boston, Massachusetts 02114, USA. Telephone: 617-724-3853; Fax: 617-724-3166; e-mail: ahezel{at}partners.org or azhu{at}partners.org

Disclosure: A.F.H. has received consulting fees from Vion Pharmaceuticals. A.X.Z. has acted as a consultant for Genentech (bevacizumab). This article discusses bevacizumab manufactured by Genentech. No other potential conflicts of interest were reported by the authors, planners, reviewers, or staff managers of this article.

Biliary tract cancers (BTCs) are invasive carcinomas that arise from the epithelial lining of the gallbladder and bile ducts. These include intrahepatic, perihilar, and distal biliary tree cancers as well as carcinoma arising from the gallbladder. Complete surgical resection offers the only chance for cure; however, only 10% of patients present with early-stage disease and are considered surgical candidates. Among those patients who do undergo "curative" resection, recurrence rates are high; thus, for the majority of BTC patients, systemic chemotherapy is the mainstay of their treatment plan. Patients with unresectable or metastatic BTC have a poor prognosis, with a median overall survival time of <1 year. Despite a paucity of randomized phase III data, a consensus on first-line systemic therapy is emerging. In this review, we discuss the clinical experience with systemic treatment of BTC, focusing on the rationale for a first-line regimen as well as future directions in the field.






HOME HELP CONTACT US SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
THE ONCOLOGIST STEM CELLS CME ALPHAMED PRESS JOURNALS
http://theoncologist.alphamedpress.org/misc/eLetters.shtml

Copyright © 2008 by AlphaMed Press.