Survival of Cholangiocarcinoma Patients in Northeastern Thailand after Supportive Treatment

Background: Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is a very common cancer in Northeastern Thailand. Most CCApatients see a physician at a late stage when curative surgery is not possible. After diagnosis, they generally aretreated by partial surgery/percutaneous drainage, chemotherapy and supportive treatment.
Objective: Thisstudy aimed to assess the survival rates of CCA patients after supportive treatment.
Methods: A retrospectivecohort design was applied in this study. Data for 746 CCA patients were extracted from the hospital-based cancerregistry of Srinagarind Hospital, Khon Kaen University. The patients were diagnosed (at least by ultrasonography)between 1 January, 2009 and 31 December, 2009 and then followed up for current status until 30 June, 2011.The cumulative survival rate was calculated by the Kaplan-Meier method, and independent prognostic factorswere investigated using Cox regression.
Results: The total follow-up time was 5,878 person-months, and thetotal number of deaths was 637. The mortality rate was therefore 10.8 per 100 person-year (95%CI : 10.1-11.7).The cumulative 3, 6, 9, 12 and 24 month survival rates were 59%, 39%, 31%, 24% and 14%, respectively. Themedian survival time after supportive treatment was 4 months. After adjusting for gender, age, stage, distantmetastasis, histological grading and treatment, stage was a significant predictor of survival of CCA patients.Those in stage III and stage IV had a 6.78 fold higher mortality than the stage I and stage II cases (95% CI :1.6-28.7).
Conclusion: It is very important to encourage patients to see health personnel at an early stage.