Abstract
In addition to the therapeutic results obtained in 7 cases with bile duct carcinoma at the porta hepatis who had had major hepatic resection in our Hospital,29 cases survived for more than 5 years after curative surgery reported in the Japanese literatures are reviewed in this paper.
In our cases, malignant potential of carcinoma of the hepatic duct confluence was l ower than that of the middle and lower third of the extrahepatic bile duct. Our cases showed high five-year survival rate of 71%. Major hepatic resection was done in all cases and caudate lobectomy was additionally performed in five cases; right trisegmentectomy (n=3), extended right lobectomy (n = 2), middle bisegmentectomy (n =1) and hepatic hilar subsegmentectomy (n=1). In long survival cases in Japan, seven-year survival rate in major hepatic resection was better than that of the cases in which only bile duct resection was performed (73% versus 35%).
These results indicate that major hepatic resection provides a long survival and a g ood quality of life for the patients with carcinoma at the hepatic duct confluence with low malignant potential.