What is chemotherapy for bile duct cancer? These things need to be noted

The disease that endangers people's lives now is cancer. With the emergence of cancer, this situation will occur in various parts of the body, and bile duct cancer is one of them. Its occurrence affects the health of patients and makes patients suffer from pain and torture. For bile duct cancer, it must be treated well to get rid of the disease.

Is chemotherapy effective for bile duct cancer? What is chemotherapy for bile duct cancer?

1. Therapeutic chemotherapy for advanced cholangiocarcinoma

Commonly used chemotherapy drugs are similar to those for other gastrointestinal cancers, mainly fluorouracil (5-FU), doxorubicin (ADM), mitomycin (MMC) and nitrosourea. It can be applied systemically or through arterial catheterization. Since the blood supply of the bile duct comes from the hepatic artery, arterial chemotherapy may have better efficacy than the former. Some studies have indeed shown that chemotherapy may relieve the symptoms caused by bile duct cancer, improve the quality of life of patients, and may also prolong survival. One group reported 49 patients, with fluorouracil as the main chemotherapy drug, and another group of 41 patients only received general care. 36% of the treated group, while only 10% of the untreated group had a high-quality life extension of 4 months. The median survival of the former was 6 months, while the latter was only 2.5 months.

2. Chemotherapy-assisted surgery for cholangiocarcinoma

Neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy is to first apply chemotherapy and radiotherapy to solid tumors, followed by surgery, and then adjuvant chemotherapy and radiotherapy after surgery. The theoretical basis is to perform effective combined chemotherapy before surgery or radiotherapy to kill a large number of sensitive tumor cells and reduce the activity of tumor cells, and then use surgical resection or radiotherapy to destroy the remaining cancer cells, including those that are insensitive to chemotherapy, to achieve the purpose of curing the tumor. Some scholars have used this regimen to treat hilar cholangiocarcinoma, usually intravenous infusion of fluorouracil for 5 days before surgery, and then external radiation therapy to the tumor site (1.8Gy/d, total dose not exceeding 50Gy). As a result, the surgical resection rate was increased, the residual rate of cancer cells under the microscope at the bile duct resection margin was reduced, and local recurrence was reduced, but there is no conclusion on whether it can improve the survival rate.

After reading the above introduction and understanding the chemotherapy methods for bile duct diseases, we can help patients receive correct treatment, avoid missing the best time for treatment, and avoid the occurrence of bile duct cancer that causes too much harm. It is important to stay away from bile duct cancer as early as possible and stay healthy.