Prognostic value of site-specific metastases for patients with advanced intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma: A SEER database analysis

Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) is an aggressive malignancy with poor prognosis and increasing incidence. Due to its asymptomatic manifestation, ICC often progresses to a metastatic stage on diagnosis. The current study attempted to evaluate the prognostic value of site-specific metastases in patients with metastatic ICC. Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database (2010–2015) was queried and metastatic ICC patients were classified according to the metastatic sites. Kaplan–Meier analysis was used for survival comparisons and multivariate analysis was performed to elicit characteristics independently associated with survival. A total of 1567 patients were identified and included in the analysis. Compared with those with multiple-site metastases, patients with single-site metastases had better prognostic outcomes. Among the single-site metastases, regional lymph nodes metastases had the best prognosis; liver metastases had better prognostic outcomes than bone metastases; no significant difference was found between lung and bone or liver metastasis. Local treatment of primary tumor might benefit patients with isolated lymph nodes metastases and few exceptional cases of patients with liver metastases. Different metastatic sites have distinct impact on the survival outcomes of patients with advanced ICC and highly selected subset of them might benefit from the local treatment of the primary tumor.