Department of Pathology, Chi Mei Medical Center, Tainan, Taiwan
Correspondence to: Chien-Feng Li. Department of Pathology, Chi Mei Medical Center, Tainan, Taiwan. Email: angelo.p@yahoo.com.tw.
Abstract: Surgery is the mainstay of early-stage cholangiocarcinoma (CCA); chemotherapy and experimental therapies remain the therapeutic cornerstone in unresectable and metastatic CCA. However, there is no biomarker with clinical utility to predict post-operative tumor recurrence and to select patients most likely to have benefit from certain therapeutics. Recent studies further disclosed the biological and immune landscapes of CCA leading to the development of potential biomarkers carrying prognostic and/or therapeutic relevance. Emerging integration of molecular profiling datasets has led to the identification of distinct molecular subtypes of CCA with diverse clinical behaviors and potential sensitivity to various therapies. It has also led to the disclosure of frequently altered genes and proteins that could lead to perturbation of intracellular signaling pathways and their microenvironment. In this talk, we summarize biomarkers that may predict the nature course of and/or response to various therapeutics with examples of ‘personalized treatment’ aiming to improve outcomes in CCA.
