2019 Volume 33 Issue 1 Pages 41-47
Surgical resection is the only curative treatment for biliary tract cancers. However, there are many unresectable or recurrent patients who need systemic therapy. The standard first-line chemotherapy is combination of gemcitabine and cisplatin. Several new regimens are now under investigation to improve the treatment outcomes. For postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy, several large-scale clinical trials have been conducted, and the evidence is accumulating. On the other hand, preoperative treatments and conversion surgery have been attempted, but the evidence is not yet sufficient. As a different approach from conventional cytotoxic agents, great expectation is given to precision medicine using molecular targeted agents. Immunotherapy including immune checkpoint inhibitors is also a promising field. With these various approaches, it is hoped that the treatment outcomes for patients with biliary tract cancers who received medical treatment will be improved in the near future.
