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Review
. 2019 Aug;8(4):44.
doi: 10.21037/cco.2019.08.14.

Systemic therapy for gallbladder cancer

Milind Javle  1 , Haitao Zhao  2 , Ghassan K Abou-Alfa  3   4
Affiliations
Review

Systemic therapy for gallbladder cancer

Milind Javle et al. Chin Clin Oncol. 2019 Aug.

Abstract

Gallbladder cancer is an aggressive cancer that continues to be an important health care issue in certain regions of the world such as Southeast Asia and Latin America. Most patients are diagnosed at an advanced, unresectable stage and systemic therapy is their only option. Gallbladder cancer patients have traditionally been included in clinical trials for biliary tract cancer. Thus, systemic chemotherapy options for this cancer are similar to those for cholangiocarcinoma, including gemcitabine and cisplatin in the first line and FOLFOX in the second-line setting. Ongoing phase III clinical trials may change the systemic therapy paradigm for this cancer. Molecular profiling has indicated important genetic differences between gallbladder cancer and cholangio-carcinoma, which affects choice of targeted therapy. Her2/neu amplification, PIK3CA mutations and DNA repair genetic aberrations are relatively frequent and represent actionable targets for this cancer.

Keywords: Cancer of gallbladder; genes ErbB2; targeted therapy.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
A 73-year-old female with metastatic retroperitoneal lymphadenopathy from gallbladder carcinoma with HER 2/neu amplification. Axial contrast-enhanced CT images demonstrate: (A) a 1.9-cm lymph node (arrow) posterior to the left renal vein. After 2 months of trastuzumab + pertuzumab, lymphadenopathy is decreased: (B) the lymph node (arrow) posterior to the left renal vein now measures 1.2 cm.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Next generation sequencing in cohorts of 108 Chinese and 107 US gallbladder cancer patients.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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