Cholangiocarcinoma Management
Each case of cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is unique, and the management options available may be influenced by factors like location of the cancer, how advanced the cancer is, and how far it has spread through your body. Your oncologist may also talk to you about the possibility of clinical studies as another option.
Common approaches that may be used to manage CCA include:
Resection
Your healthcare team will first determine if cancer can be removed surgically. This is known as resection. People who undergo resection may also receive additional treatment following the surgery to help ensure all the cancer is removed. Resection is the only curative option, but CCA is often diagnosed at an advanced stage—after the disease has already spread to other parts of the body. In these cases, surgery to remove the cancer may not be possible.
Chemotherapy
To slow or stop cancer growth, your oncologist may employ chemotherapy, which is treatment with drugs that slow or stop the growth of rapidly dividing cells. This can include fast-growing cancer cells as well as healthy cells.
Radiation Therapy
A type of cancer treatment that uses high-energy x-rays or other types of radiation that may kill some cancer cells or keep them from growing is known as radiation therapy.
Biliary Drainage
If the bile ducts are blocked, jaundice, pain, and infections can occur. Biliary drainage using a catheter (a thin flexible tube) can help improve blockages.
Targeted Therapy
Cancer cells can have a range of genetic alterations, causing one person's specific type of CCA to differ from another person's tumor. Targeted therapy is sometimes called precision medicine or personalized medicine because it is designed to precisely target these specific changes in cancer cells while affecting normal cells less than traditional chemotherapy does. Targeted therapies can block or turn off signals to make cancer cells grow, or they can signal the cancer cells to destroy themselves.
Anatomy of a clinical study
A clinical study researches new drugs in people who have certain medical conditions, such as cancer. Your doctor may recommend a clinical study for you and can provide additional information about how they work.
Learn more about what researchers look for in clinical studies and how results are measured.
How Biomarker Testing Can Help
Biomarker testing can identify the unique abnormal gene changes in a person's tumor that may guide decisions about management of CCA.
Learn More About Biomarker TestingNCCN Guidelines for Patients®: Gallbladder and Bile Duct Cancers
Learn more about CCA and potential management approaches in this publication from the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®), a not-for-profit alliance of 33 leading cancer centers devoted to patient care, research, and education.
See the NCCN Guidelines for PatientsReferenced with permission from the NCCN Guidelines for Patients® for Gallbladder and Bile Duct Cancers, 2023. © National Comprehensive Cancer Network, Inc. 2023. All rights reserved. Accessed November 6, 2024. To view the most recent and complete version of the NCCN Guidelines for Patients, visit NCCN.org/patientguidelines. NCCN makes no warranties of any kind whatsoever regarding their content, use or application and disclaims any responsibility for their application or use in any way.