Chemotherapy with gemcitabine in patients with advanced gallbladder carcinoma

Background: Advanced or metastatic gallbladder carcinoma is regarded not mu ch sensitive to chemotherapy. Standard chemotherapy regimens have not been established up to now. Patients: We report on 5 patients with advanced gallbladder carcinoma who r eceived chemotherapy with gemcitabine. Results: Of these 5 patients, 3 demonstrated a partial remission and stable disease was achieved in another patient. Only one patient had no benefit f rom treatment with gemcitabine. Conclusion: We conclude that gemcitabine may be an effective drug in the pa lliative treatment of gallbladder cancer, and thus its efficiency warrants evaluation in further studies.