Abstract
The importance of second-stage operation for gallbladder cancer was evaluated in 7 out of 42 cases whose lesion was resected in our hospital. One and three year survival rate of the patients who had had the second-stage operation were 83.3% and 20.3% respectively. These rates were significantly better than those of the patients treated with only simple cholecystectomy (p<0.05).
Five cases had infiltrative poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma, and in 4 of 6 cases of advanced cancer, carcinoma had invaded the regional lymph nodes of 2 nd group. Therefore, it is considered that the second-stage operation should be indicated in the majority of cases because the infiltrative type of which preoperative diagnosis is difficult to make is predominant. This fact is responsible for short survival periods. These facts suggested that aggressive radical operation accompanied with extended dissection of regional nodes must be indicated for the patient with advanced gallbladder cancer to obtain a better therapeutic results.
