Bile Duct Cancer

What is Bile Duct Cancer?

Bile Duct Cancer begins in a bile duct. To understand this cancer, it helps on the normal biliary tract and what they know to do.
About the bile ducts

The bile ducts are a series of thin tubes, the distance from the liver to the small intestine. The main function of the bile duct is a liquid, the bile from the liver and gall bladder into the small intestine, where it helps to digest the fats in the food to move.

Different parts of the biliary tree have different names. In the liver, it begins so many small tubes (called ductules) which collects bile from the liver cells. The Ductuli come together to form small channels, which then merge into larger ducts and finally the left and right hepatic ducts. All of these channels in the liver are called intrahepatic bile ducts.

The left and right hepatic ducts exit from the liver or to the common hepatic duct to form in a region called the hilum. Further down, the gallbladder (a small organ that stores bile) of the common hepatic duct joins the cystic duct called by a small canal. The combined channel called the common bile duct. The bile duct passes through a part of the pancreas before the junction with the pancreatic duct and opens into the first portion of the small intestine (duodenum) to the ampulla father.
Types of bile duct cancer by location

Cancer can develop in any part of the bile duct system and on the basis of their position (see picture below), are divided into 3 types:

Intrahepatic bile duct cancer
Perihilar (also hilar) bile duct cancer
Distal bile duct cancer

Cancers in these different areas may cause different symptoms.
Intrahepatic bile duct cancer

To develop in the smaller bile duct branches in the liver These cancers. You can sometimes find cancers that are confused to start frequently treated in the liver cells, which are called hepatocellular carcinomas and in the same way. Only about 1 in 10 bile duct cancer are intrahepatic.
Perihilar (also hilar) bile duct cancer

These cancers develop on the hilum, where the left and right hepatic ducts have joined forces and are straight out of the liver. These are also referred to Klatskin tumors. They are the most common type of bile duct cancer, more than half of all cancers bile duct. These cancers are grouped with distal bile duct cancer such as extrahepatic bile duct cancer.
Distal bile duct cancer

These cancers are found later in the bile duct, closer to the small intestine. How perihilar cancers, these extrahepatic bile duct cancer, as they start outside the liver. Distal bile duct cancer form 2 to 3 every 10 bile duct cancer.
Types of bile duct cancer by cell type

Bile duct cancer can also in species depending on how to divide the cancer cells under a microscope.

Almost all bile duct cancer are called cholangiocarcinomas. Most of these are adenocarcinomas, the cancers that begin in glandular cells. Bile duct adenocarcinomas develop from the mucous glands cells. The interior of the pipeline

Other types of bile duct cancer are much rarer. This includes sarcomas, lymphomas and small cell lung cancer. This document is not to discuss these types of bile duct cancer.

The remainder of this document refers only to cholangiocarcinomas.
Benign bile duct tumors

Not all bile duct tumors are malignant. Bile duct hamartomas and bile duct adenomas are examples of benign (non-cancerous) tumors that are not explained further in this document.
Other cancers in the liver

The most common form of cancer that starts in the liver - much more common than intrahepatic bile duct cancer - is hepatocellular carcinoma, which developed from liver cells. Hepatocellular carcinoma is discussed more liver cancer in our document.

Cancers that begin in some other organs can spread to the liver. These are called secondary liver cancer or liver metastases. Your attitude and treatment are not the same as cancer in the liver (eg hepatocellular carcinoma) or bile ducts (as cholangiocarcinoma) begins, but on where the cancer depend started. For this reason it is important to know if an adenocarcinoma in the liver in the bile ducts of the author (and is a cholangiocarcinoma), or whether it started in another organ (such as the colon) and then spread to the liver.