Gallbladder cancer affects the gallbladder, a small pear-shaped organ located in your upper abdomen next to the liver. The role of the gallbladderis to store fluid called bile. The liver produces bile to help digest and absorb fats in the small bowel (or small intestine).
There are several types of gallbladder cancers, named after the type of cell it affects. Gallbladder cancer begins in the mucosal inner layer of thegallbladder and spreads through the outer layers. More than 85% ofgallbladder cancer types are adenocarcinomas that start in the gland cells lining the gallbladder. The role of the gland cells is to produce mucus, a thick fluid that coats the lining of the gallbladder tissue..
Risk factor
The risk group includes patients suffering from cholelithiasis and chronic cholecystitis. Other common factors include chronic typhoid infection, being overweight or obese and chronic smoking. Women suffer from this pathology four times more often than men. This disease most often occurs in people older than 50 years.
Symptoms
The tumour begins to form in the mucous membrane, then spreads to the liver and peritoneum. At the early stage of the disease, no specific symptoms are observed. Most often, patients have pressure in the upper abdomen, digestion is disrupted, nausea or vomiting. Then there are pains, weight of a body decreases. In addition to these symptoms, there is jaundice, can be due to infiltration of tumor into the liver or by the obstruction caused by involved lymph nodes around bile tract.
Diagnosis
Diagnosis of stomach cancer is established by doing an upper endoscopy. It is a procedure in which a flexible thin tube with camera is passed and stomach is seen from inside. If any abnormality is seen then a small sample from it is obtained called as biopsy and examined under microscope confirming the diagnosis.