Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jul 7, 2020; 26(25): 3542-3561
Published online Jul 7, 2020. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v26.i25.3542
Practical review for diagnosis and clinical management of perihilar cholangiocarcinoma
Daniele Dondossola, Michele Ghidini, Francesco Grossi, Giorgio Rossi, Diego Foschi
Daniele Dondossola, Giorgio Rossi, General and Liver Transplant Surgery Unit, Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda, Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Milan 20122, Italy
Daniele Dondossola, Giorgio Rossi, Department of Pathophysiology and Transplantation, Università degli Studi of Milan, Milan 20122, Italy
Michele Ghidini, Francesco Grossi, Medical Oncology Unit, Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Milan 20122, Italy
Diego Foschi, Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences "Luigi Sacco", L. Sacco Hospital, Università degli Studi of Milan, Milan 20157, Italy
Author contributions: Dondossola D and Ghidini M drafted the paper; Dondossola D and Foschi D conceptualized the study; Grossi F reviewed the paper; Rossi G and Foschi D approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors declare no conflict of interests for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Dondossola Daniele, MD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Surgeon, General and Liver Transplant Surgery Unit, Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Via Franscesco Sforza, 35, Milan 20122, Italy. dondossola.daniele@gmail.com
Received: December 31, 2019
Peer-review started: December 31, 2019
First decision: January 16, 2020
Revised: June 5, 2020
Accepted: June 19, 2020
Article in press: June 19, 2020
Published online: July 7, 2020
Core Tip

Core tip: Perihilar cholangiocarncioma (pCCC) is burdened by a complicated diagnostic iter and, due to its anatomical location and biological characteristics, is affected by poor results. Confounding factors, such as biliary decompression, must be avoided during diagnosis and evaluation of longitudinal extension of the tumor. While surgical advances allows the extension of surgical indication (especially for type IV pCCC and portal invasion), adjuvant chemotherapy should be administered to improve post-surgical results. Herein, a highlight on diagnostic and therapeutic management is here provided.