Typical clinical manifestations of gallbladder cancer

Gallbladder cancer is the most common malignant lesion of the bile duct, with a relatively high degree of malignancy. According to domestic statistics, it accounts for about 25% of extrahepatic bile duct cancer and 0.4% to 3.8% of bile duct diseases. Gallbladder cancer is more common in middle-aged and elderly people over 50 years old, and female patients are more common than male patients. The manifestations of gallbladder cancer are also quite diverse, and there may be different symptoms depending on the location and depth of the lesion.

There are no specific symptoms in the early stage of gallbladder cancer, such as abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal tenderness caused by existing chronic cholecystitis or gallstones. Some patients are accidentally diagnosed with gallbladder cancer after cholecystectomy. When the gallbladder cancer tumor grows to a certain extent and invades the serosa or gallbladder bed, localization symptoms will appear, the most common of which is right upper abdominal pain, which can radiate to the shoulder and back on the same side. At this time, the patient's appetite decreases significantly, and the enlarged gallbladder can be felt when the cystic duct is blocked. When the mass in the right upper abdomen can be felt on the surface of the body, most of the tumors have developed to the late stage, often accompanied by abdominal distension, weight loss or emaciation, poor appetite, severe anemia, liver enlargement, and even jaundice, ascites, and systemic failure. In a small number of patients, the tumor will penetrate the serosa, causing acute perforation of the gallbladder, peritonitis, or chronic penetration to other organs, forming internal fistulas, and can also cause bile duct bleeding and diffuse liver metastasis leading to liver failure.