Resumen
Biliary tract cancer is the second most common type of liver cancer. Patients often present when the disease has spread from the liver to other neighboring or distant parts of the body. Chemotherapy with the combination of gemcitabine and cisplatin has been the standard of care for this disease for the past decade. This study assessed patients whose disease continued to grow (progressing) despite one prior treatment of chemotherapy, based on a multidisciplinary discussion of individual cases. Patients who received antitumor therapy including a second treatment of chemotherapy (FOLFIRI), a minimally invasive, image-guided procedure or a combination of both, lived approximately 6, 9, and 15 months longer, respectively, than patients who did not receive tumor-specific therapy. Overall, the results of this study suggest that individualized treatment based on a multidisciplinary discussion may increase how long patients with biliary tract cancer progressing despite one prior treatment of chemotherapy live.