Locally advanced gallbladder cancer: a management dilemma

Gallbladder cancer is an aggressive malignancy that is associated with a poor prognosis. While surgical resection provides the only curative option, the majority of patients are not considered resectable due to the presence of metastatic disease at the time of presentation. As systemic therapeutic options improve, a treatment dilemma can arise in patients treated with upfront chemotherapy with responsive disease and regionally metastatic disease that is resectable. We present a patient with regionally metastatic gallbladder cancer to segment IVb of the liver with responsive disease after gemcitabine/cisplatin treatment who underwent a radical cholecystectomy and central hepatectomy resulting in a prolonged disease-free interval.