Adenosquamous/squamous cell carcinoma of the gallbladder.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Adenosquamous/squamous cell carcinoma is a rare histopathologic subtype of gallbladder malignancy. Its clinical features have rarely been described, and its differences from the major histopathologic subtype, adenocarcinoma, remain uncertain.

METHODS

All patients with gallbladder carcinoma were retrospectively reviewed. Patients with a histopathologic subtype of either adenosquamous (n = 12) or squamous cell (n = 2) carcinoma were categorized to group I, and patients with adenocarcinoma were categorized to group II. The clinical characteristics and outcomes of these two groups were compared.

RESULTS

The two groups were generally no different in clinical features. However, tumor stages of group I patients were significantly advanced (P = 0.048) and included liver involvement (P = 0.008). The outcomes of advanced-stage patients in group II were not different from group I (P = 0.413). Nevertheless, patients in both groups with advanced stage pT who had undergone curative resection showed significantly better survival curves than patients who had undergone non-curative resection (P = 0.003).

CONCLUSIONS

Patients with adenosquamous/squamous cell carcinoma of the gallbladder were generally similar to those with adenocarcinoma in clinical characteristics, but had a tendency for liver infiltration. Although the two histopathologic subtypes of the gallbladder carcinoma had similar poor outcomes, better survival could be obtained by performing curative resection for these patients.