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5 slides generated from the cancer page, with a quiz from the open benchmark and speaker notes that cite the sources. Arrow keys move between slides; Print gives one slide per page.
Cystic duct carcinoma is a bile duct cancer arising in the short tube that joins the gallbladder to the main bile duct. It is staged as a gallbladder cancer under the AJCC system, and behaves better when it stays inside the duct than when it grows beyond it. It is so rare that its treatment borrows from gallbladder and bile duct cancer.
The cystic duct runs from the gallbladder neck to the common hepatic duct. Cancers arising here have been classified sometimes with the extrahepatic bile ducts and sometimes with the gallbladder; the AJCC staging manual has placed the cystic duct in the gallbladder chapter since its 7th edition (2010) (Prasoon 2019), and the WHO classification covers the gallbladder and extrahepatic bile ducts in one chapter. A 2025 Korean study compared 38 cystic duct cancers with 345 gallbladder and 349 distal bile duct cancers: overall survival did not differ between the three, the gallbladder T categories separated survival in cystic duct cancer better than the bile duct categories did, and tumours confined within the duct (Nakata type 1) did significantly better than those extending beyond it, leading the authors to propose a two-tier T category (T1 confined to the duct, T2 beyond it) (Kim 2025). Cancers can also arise in the cystic duct remnant years after cholecystectomy; jaundice, haemobilia and positive bile cytology led to the diagnosis in one reported case, staged pT1b N0 after bile duct resection (Prasoon 2019).
What differs in treatment: the tumour sits at the junction with the common duct, so resection usually means excision of the extrahepatic bile duct with hepaticojejunostomy and regional lymphadenectomy, often with the gallbladder and liver bed as in a radical cholecystectomy, and the cystic duct margin of any gallbladder specimen is where such a tumour is first suspected. Systemic treatment follows the biliary tract cancer trials. No trial has studied cystic duct cancer on its own.
| Setting | Approach | Guideline |
|---|---|---|
| Resectable disease | Extrahepatic bile duct resection with regional lymphadenectomy, with cholecystectomy and liver bed resection as for radical cholecystectomy when the gallbladder is still present. | not mapped |
| Advanced disease | As for biliary tract cancer. | not mapped |