Extrahepatic Bile Duct Cancer Center
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At Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA), we use many tools to help you fight extrahepatic bile duct cancer on all fronts. Here, a multidisciplinary cancer care team will work with you to develop a treatment plan that is tailored to your needs. Our cancer experts provide a powerful combination of traditional and new, innovative therapies. Below are some of the extrahepatic bile duct cancer treatment options you’ll find at CTCA.
Extrahepatic Bile Duct Cancer Treatment Options
- Surgery is a common procedure used to treat extrahepatic bile duct cancer, whenever practical. Surgery may also help to relieve symptoms or prevent future complications, such as blockage or bleeding.
- Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) employs a powerful, advanced computer program that plans a precise dose of radiation in three dimensions, based on individual tumor size, shape and location. Remarkably, IMRT allows for higher radiation doses than traditional radiotherapy methods, while helping to spare more of the surrounding healthy tissue.
- Metronomic (Fractionated-Dose) Chemotherapy divides a powerful dose of anticancer drugs into smaller doses, administered over several days. This approach may expose cancer cells to the drugs for a longer period of time, while also helping to reduce the unpleasant side effects often experienced with larger doses.
- Biotherapy/Immunotherapy is a treatment that is sometimes used for extrahepatic bile duct cancer. Immunotherapy causes the body’s own natural defenses (immune system) to attack the cancer.
Extrahepatic bile duct cancer treatment options depend on many factors, such as the progression of the illness, as well as your age, overall health and personal preferences. The most common bile duct cancer treatment options are surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy. If the tumor cannot be removed surgically, bypass procedures may be performed to prevent obstruction of the gastrointestinal and biliary tracts and to relieve symptoms.
Extrahepatic Bile Duct Cancer Quality of Life Therapies
In addition to providing the advanced treatments described above, CTCA enriches your treatment by offering several complementary medicine therapies, including the following:
- Naturopathic medicine
- Nutrition therapy
- Oncology rehabilitation
- Mind-body medicine
- Spiritual support
These therapies may help reduce side effects and improve your quality of life throughout extrahepatic bile duct cancer treatment. At CTCA, you’ll receive integrated, patient-centered cancer care for the whole person, not just the disease.
Explore the pages of this website to learn about extrahepatic bile duct cancer, including risk factors for developing the disease, its symptoms and stages, as well as some of the treatments for extrahepatic bile duct cancer available at CTCA. You can also call 1-800-615-3055 anytime to learn more about how CTCA may be able to help you fight extrahepatic bile duct cancer.
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