Intra-arterial chemotherapy improved survival of stage 2–3 gallbladder cancer after curative resection

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the impact of postresection intra-arterial chemotherapy (IAC) on prognosis of stage 2–3 gallbladder cancer (GBC) after curative resection. METHODS: Between May 2010 and August 2014, 76 cases of GBC accepted curative surgery in our center and were pathologically staged as 2–3. After resection, 37 underwent 4 courses of intravenous chemotherapy (IVC) following 2 courses of IAC (ART group), and 39 received 6 courses of IVC (SYS group). Both the IAC and IVC regimens consisted of oxaliplatin (85 mg/m(2)) on day 1 and gemcitabine (800 mg/m(2)) on day 1 and day 8. Chemotherapy-related complications, disease-free survival (DFS), overall survival (OS), and hepatic metastases-free survival (HMFS) were retrospectively analyzed. RESULTS: Patient characteristics and chemotherapy complications did not differ between the two groups. There was no significant difference in 3-year DFS of the two groups (p=0.0822, HR=0.6270; 95% CI, 0.3627 to 1.0838). The ART group had significantly higher 3-year OS (p=0.0378, HR=0.5460; 95% CI, 0.3025 to 0.9856) and 3-year HMFS (p=0.0414, HR=0.5187; 95% CI, 0.2706 to 0.9940) than the SYS group. CONCLUSIONS: IAC could effectively and safely decrease postresection hepatic metastases and improve 3-year HMFS and OS of stage 2–3 GBC.