What isbile duct cancer and how to treat it?

As we all know, the liver, which is the largest gland of our body, produces a digestive juice known as bile.This juice is storedin gall bladder. When required, the bile is forced out of the gall bladder through the bile duct. A type of cancer, which affects this tube, which is the connection between the liver, gall bladder and the small intestine, is called bile duct cancer or cholangiocarcinoma. It can be of two types depending on its appearance inside or outside the liver. When inside the liver is called intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma and when outside is called extra hepatic cholangiocarcinoma. 

Treatments Options-

Surgery

Depending on the spread of cancer cells, there are three types of surgery:

§      Removal of the bile ducts only, when the cancer cells are small and haven’t spread to the other areas. This is the simplest form of the cancer and the surgery.

§     The Whipple procedure, which involves the removal of a portion of the stomach, the bile duct, the head of the pancreas, a portion of the intestine and the gall bladder is done when the cancer has spread a lot and affected these organs too.

§     In partial hepatectomy,either the cancer cell or a portion of the liver is removed as the cancer cells affect the liver too.

Radiation Therapy

In radiation therapy or just radiotherapy rays with high energy are used to destroy the cancer cells remaining in the body. Though surgery most often removes most of the cancerous cells, it is sometimes preferable to follow it up with radiotherapy.

Chemotherapy

Anti-cancer drugs are administered to the patient either intravenously or orally by taking pills. These special drugs are designed to combat and kill the cancer cells in the body. This technique is not totally effective and also has a lot of side effects. Chemotherapy is also not recommended for people in really bad health.