Digital Diagnosis and Management of Cholangiocarcinoma

Cancer of biliary duct can be divided into intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) and extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ECC). ECC is further divided into hilar cholangiocarcinoma and distal cholangiocarcinoma based on the junction point of the cystic duct and common hepatic duct. The main risk factors of cholangiocarcinoma include bile duct stones, HBV, and HCV infection, primary sclerosing cholangitis, liver flukes, and chemical substances. The risk factors of ECC also include biliary and pancreatic duct confluence abnormalities and common bile duct cystic dilatation. According to the general appearance of the tumor, ICC is classified as mass forming, perivascular infiltration, and intravascular growth, while ECC is classified as polyp, nodular, sclerosing, and diffusely infiltrating. Adenocarcinoma is the most common type in both ICC and ECC. Surgical resection is the only radical treatment for cholangiocarcinoma. Radical resection should be actively sought as long as the patient’s systemic condition is tolerable to surgery, and there is no distant metastasis. As digital medical technology has become widely used in liver and gallbladder surgery in our country, three-dimensional visualization technology has brought new ideas for accurate diagnosis, preoperative assessment, choice schemes, and treatment of cholangiocarcinoma. The mode of diagnosis and treatment of hepatobiliary diseases is changing constantly, and the digitization of anatomy, the procedure of diagnosis and the visualization of operation have been realized in hepatobiliary surgery. Digitization has played an active role in the accurate and efficient diagnosis of diseases, the selection of reasonable treatment schemes, the improvement of surgical success rates, and the reduction of surgical risk.