Klatskin-mimicking lesions: still a diagnostical and therapeutical dilemma?

Abstract

Background/aims: The preoperative as well as the intraoperative differentiation between Klatskin-mimicking lesions and malignant bile duct tumors at hilar bifurcation is still challenging. Our intention was to review the preoperative diagnostics including preoperative CA19-9 and bilirubin serum levels to compare benign and malignant tumors.

Methodology: We analyzed our prospectively established bile duct tumor database. From 1999 to 2008, 238 patients suspicious for hilar cholangiocarcinoma underwent surgery. In 24 patients the postoperative histological diagnosis showed a Klatskin-mimicking lesion. The histological report from 20 out of the 24 patients showed a chronic inflammatory transformation of the bile ducts. The histology of two patients showed a primary sclerosing cholangitis and the histological examination of the two remaining patients diagnosed a sarcoidosis of the extrahepatic bile duct.

Results: Reassessment of preoperative diagnostics did not deliver any change of interpretation of the tumors' dignity compared to how it had been assessed preoperatively. Also, preoperative CA19-9 serum levels do not show a statistically reliable differentiation between benign or malignant dignity.

Conclusion: Current diagnostics cannot differentiate malignant from benign tumor masses in the hepatic hilum with the necessitated reliability. Therefore surgical resection of suspect hilar tumors is still the only appropriate therapy.