Adjuvant therapy for gallbladder carcinoma: the Mayo Clinic Experience.

Purpose To analyze the effect of adjuvant chemoradiotherapy on gallbladder carcinoma. Methods and Materials We retrospectively reviewed the records from consecutive patients who underwent R0 resection of gallbladder carcinoma between January 1, 1985, and December 31, 2004. Patients had either Stage I (T1-T2N0M0) or Stage II (T3N0M0 or T1-T3N1M0) disease. Patients undergoing adjuvant therapy received 5-fluorouracil chemotherapy concurrently with radiotherapy (median dosage, 50.4 Gy in 28 fractions). Adverse prognostic factors and the effect of adjuvant treatment on overall survival (OS) were evaluated. Results A total of 73 patients were included in the analysis; of these, 25 received adjuvant chemoradiotherapy. On univariate analysis, no adverse prognostic factors for OS reached statistical significance, but trends were noted for Stage N1 vs. N0 ( p = .06), Nx vs. N0 ( p = .09), Stage T3 vs. T1-T2 ( p = .06), and histologic findings other than adenocarcinoma ( p = .13). The median OS for patients receiving adjuvant chemoradiotherapy vs. surgery alone was 4.8 years and 4.2 years, respectively (log–rank test, p = .56). However, a significantly greater percentage of patients receiving adjuvant chemoradiotherapy had Stage II disease ( p p = .004). Conclusion After adjusting for the stage parameters and histologic findings, our data suggest that adjuvant chemoradiotherapy might improve OS for patients with gallbladder cancer.