Advances in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Patients with Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma

Abstract

Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) is an aggressive biliary tract cancer (BTC) that arises from the biliary tract epithelium distal to the secondary biliary radicals. Over the past decade, significant advances have been made in the diagnosis, staging, and treatment of ICC. Emerging data have highlighted the importance of lymphadenectomy for elucidating patient prognosis as well as the at-risk nodal basins based on tumor location (de Jong et al. in J Clin Oncol 29(23):3140-3145, 2011). Several large randomized controlled trials have recently been published clarifying the role of adjuvant therapy for BTCs (Cloyd and Pawlik in J Oncol Pract 14(12):723-724, 2018). In addition, the molecular understanding of ICC pathogenesis has increased over time, leading to new potential molecular biomarkers and opening opportunities for novel targeted and immunologic therapies (Rizvi et al. in Nat Rev Clin Oncol 15(2):95-111, 2018). These recent advances serve to only improve our understanding of the optimal multidisciplinary treatment of this difficult disease.