Vij M, Puri Y, Rammohan A, G G, Rajalingam R, Kaliamoorthy I, Rela M. Pathological, molecular, and clinical characteristics of cholangiocarcinoma: A comprehensive review. World J Gastrointest Oncol 2022; 14(3): 607-627 [PMID: 35321284 DOI: 10.4251/wjgo.v14.i3.607]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Mukul Vij, MD, Department of Pathology, Dr Rela Institute and Medical Center, No. 7 CLC Works Road, Chromepet, Chennai 600044, Tamil Nadu, India. mukul.vij.path@gmail.com
Research Domain of This Article
Pathology
Article-Type of This Article
Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (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/
Mukul Vij, Gowripriya G, Department of Pathology, Dr Rela Institute and Medical center, Chennai 600044, Tamil Nadu, India
Yogesh Puri, Ashwin Rammohan, Rajesh Rajalingam, Ilankumaran Kaliamoorthy, Mohamed Rela, Institute of Liver Disease and Transplantation, Dr Rela Institute and Medical Center, Chennai 600044, Tamil Nadu, India
Author contributions: Vij M conceptualized the review, performed literature search and drafting of the manuscript; Puri Y, Rammohan A, G G, Rajalingam R, Kaliamoorthy I and Rela M edited and revised the review; All authors read and approved the manuscript for publication.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of 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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Mukul Vij, MD, Department of Pathology, Dr Rela Institute and Medical Center, No. 7 CLC Works Road, Chromepet, Chennai 600044, Tamil Nadu, India. mukul.vij.path@gmail.com
Received: September 25, 2021 Peer-review started: September 25, 2021 First decision: December 4, 2021 Revised: December 13, 2021 Accepted: February 23, 2022 Article in press: February 23, 2022 Published online: March 15, 2022 Processing time: 166 Days and 11.4 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Cholangiocarcinoma is a heterogeneous and aggressive epithelial malignancy of the biliary system. The majority of cholangiocarcinomas are diagnosed at an advanced stage when choice of treatment is limited. Cholangiocarcinoma is classified into intrahepatic, perihilar, and distal bile duct cancer, according to the anatomical location. This review focuses on the current knowledge of histopathological features, molecular alterations and clinical characteristics of cholangiocarcinoma and its precursor lesions (including biliary intraepithelial neoplasia, intraductal papillary neoplasms of the bile duct, intraductal tubulopapillary neoplasms and hepatobiliary mucinous cystic neoplasm. Recently, actionable genetic alterations, mainly IDH1 mutations and FGFR2 fusions have been described, in cholangiocarcinoma.