| [ Summary ] |
While chemotherapy plays a major role in the treatment of biliary tract cancer, a large-scale comparative trial had not been performed until recently. Therefore, no standard therapy has been established. Since the effectiveness of gemcitabine for pancreatic cancer was demonstrated in 1997, gemcitabine monotherapy has been the defacto standard therapy for biliary tract cancer. As a result of a phase III trial (ABC-02 Trial) recently conducted in Britain, however, combination therapy with gemcitabine and cisplatin has been shown to be significantly more effective than gemcitabine alone. This combination therapy has gained recognition there as the standard therapy for this disease. A trial (BT-22 Trial) employing the same treatment regimen has been carried out in Japan, and this therapy is expected to become the standard modality in Japan as well. It is, therefore, highly likely that even more comparative studies will be carried out in the near future based on these findings. This may lead to new procedures for biliary tract cancer chemotherapy treatment. |