DOI: 10.36347/sasjs

Pages: 154-164

Carcinoma gallbladder has traditionally been considered an incurable disease with a poor prognosis. The aim of this study was to study the clinical presentation and pathology of carcinoma gallbladder and to correlate serum CA 19- 9 to staging which may help in its better diagnosis and further treatment. It was seen that the mean age of presentation was 52.6 years and was found to be more common in female with the male to female ratio of 1:3.7. Most of the patients belonged to low socioeconomic class (56%). The most common clinical feature was pain (86.7%). Stage IVb was the most common stage (53.3) and adenocarcinoma the most common histological type. It was seen that CA 19-9 was raised in 96.6% of the patients, with the mean of 795.13 U/ml. CA 19-9 did not significantly correlate with gender, pain, jaundice, weight loss, anaemia, nausea/vomiting, abdominal lump and gall stone but significantly correlated with nodal stage (p-value = 0.001), metastasis (p-value = 0.015), stage (p-value = 0.000) and socioeconomic status (p-value = 0.001). Higher stages are associated with poorer prognosis, therefore, it can be stated that high serum CA 19-9 value has poor prognosis. In any case of gallbladder pathology with raised CA 19-9 it is essential to rule out gallbladder malignancy and diagnosed preoperative patients should also have serum CA 19-9 evaluated for monitoring, recurrence and follow up