Tumors of Klatskin: Symptoms and Treatment

The tumor of Klatskin is a cancer of the proximal bile ducts. A tumor of this kind is formed in the upper bile duct, where they are divided between the lobes of the liver. Tumors of Klatskin can form in both ducts or in one of them, as well as at the exit from the liver. With the course of the disease, the tumor can spread to the hepatic blood vessels.

General information about the disease

Despite the fact that modern medicine has acquired a lot of useful tools through which it is possible to detect and promptly diagnose a disease, oncological diseases of the liver and pancreas are poorly understood. In particular, this state of affairs concerns the extracarticular segment of the digestive system. The most vulnerable to the Klatskin tumor are certain risk groups. The first is children under the age of 5 who do not suffer from pathologies of the gastrointestinal tract. The second - people who have crossed the 60-year-old line, who have significant disorders of the biliary tract.

Oncological diseases can arise for a variety of reasons, but modern medicine determines the following: toxic waste released into the atmosphere in large quantities; Stress and other nervous disorders; environmental pollution; bad habits. In addition, the cause of the formation of a tumor Klatskin can serve and improper nutrition:

• The use of genetically modified foods as food;
• Alcohol abuse;
• Consumption of a large number of preservatives and food additives.

The disease appears due to a complex of problems that cause somatic diseases. They eventually form new growths of a different nature. If you do not pay attention to the symptoms and start the disease, it quickly progresses and causes considerable discomfort.

Classification of bile duct tumors

1. Benign: papillomas, lipomas, adenomas.
2. Malignant: cholangiocellular cancer, gall bladder cancer, bile duct cancer .
3. Tumor of Klatskin.

Classification by localization area

• Contaminating bile ducts with a hepatic plug.
• The defeat of one of the ducts.
• Defeat of both ducts.

Patient Complaints

This disease is diagnosed by doctors very rarely. Successful treatment depends on many factors, but the most significant is the time of the patient's treatment to the doctor. If a person turned to a specialist on time, the treatment in most cases is successful, but if the disease is started, successful results are highly unlikely to wait. Usually Klatskin's tumor is diagnosed during examination due to other acute or chronic disorders of the digestive tract.

In other cases, patients come to a doctor for a gastroenterologist for help with just such a problem. The most common complaints of patients in this case:

• Heaviness in the side;
• General weakness of the body and fatigue;
• Vague and unpleasant mouthfeel;
• malaise.

The oncology itself is diagnosed not so simply. The fact is that the Klatskin tumor - mechanical jaundice, as it is also called - has signs similar to a variety of diseases, such as the parenchyma of the liver or bile ducts.

Symptoms

In terms of symptoms, the disease has the following features:

• Significant weight loss in a short time;
• Urine acquires a darker shade, feces lightens;
• With the active course of the disease there is itching of the skin, skin rashes;
• A growing tumor causes pain in different areas of the abdomen, which appear at later stages of the disease.

The etiological factors of development of malignant structures in extrahepatic bile ducts are almost unknown. But the following can be considered as predisposing to the development of the disease:

• Very often in people over 60 the tumor of Klatskin occurs in conjunction with cholelithiasis;
• Great importance also has a genetic predisposition, especially for people of mature but not old age;
• Among the precursor diseases, primary sclerosing cholangitis can be considered;
• The least common disease catalysts are hepatitis B and C viruses.

How to detect the presence of disease

To detect a Klatskin tumor, several methods can be used:

1. Percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography - with this procedure, doctors receive a complete radiograph of the bile ducts. To conduct the procedure, the patient is forbidden to eat and drink 6 hours before the beginning of the procedure, at the same time he is given sedatives. The procedure begins with the introduction of a local anesthetic into the right abdomen, then a thin needle is inserted through the skin into the bile ducts, through which the dye is introduced. Then the radiography is performed, which shows whether any irregularities in the biliary tract have occurred. The entire procedure for controlling the accuracy of needle hit is performed using an ultrasound machine. Before and after percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography, the patient is prescribed antibiotics to prevent the possibility of infection.
2. Angiography. This type of diagnosis is prescribed if the duct is located near the main blood vessels of the liver. With the help of angiography, it is determined whether the vessels are affected by a flowing tumor. It is performed as follows: a thin tube is inserted into the inguinal artery, through which a special purpose dye is carried, which then passes into the artery.
3. Endoscopic retrograde pancreatocholangiography is also used in the onset of this cancer, it is applicable for tumor obstruction. It is performed to more accurately determine the duration of the course of pathological processes after performing percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography.
4. Magnetic resonance therapy is one of the most optimal methods of tumor research. It allows to determine exact localization and visualizes the structure of the blood vessels of the liver.
5. Biopsy is the most effective method. Only it allows you to accurately determine the presence of the tumor, its structure and the nature of the tissues. For this purpose, a puncture is taken from the damaged area, which is then examined by microbiological analysis. This procedure is performed in conjunction with percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography.

Treatment of the disease

As already mentioned, it is very difficult to recognize Klatskin's tumor. Treatment of cholangitis - is the implementation of a set of measures to get rid of the disease. If the treatment is not started on time, the patient will inevitably die within 4-6 months. Cancer is a heavily treatable disease, Klatskin's tumor has the same characteristic. Treatment of this disease is most often the removal of the affected tissue. In this case, it must be complete, that is, the affected tissues are removed with clean tissues. This is done so that there are no malignant cells left in the affected area, sometimes one of the lobes of the liver is removed. If the Klatskin tumor, whose development prediction is very difficult, can not be removed due to damage to the circulatory system of the whole organ, radiation and chemotherapy are used, but, as a rule, it is ineffective.

Where to look for help

Despite the fact that the disease in question is known for a long time and there are ways to combat it through the removal of tissues, there is still no single approach to the question of how to treat Klatskin with a tumor. Treatment of purulent cholangitis is very successful in Israel in specialized clinics for the treatment of oncology. There for a long time have everything necessary to treat liver damage of this nature. It's not a secret for anyone that Israel is a place of concentration of the strongest specialists in the field of medicine, so it is understandable why Klatovin's tumor is successfully treated there. Feedback from patients treated there indicates that the service in Israeli cancer clinics is at the highest level.