Gallbladder Cancer

Learn more about gallbladder cancer, who gets it, and how it is treated.

Gallbladder cancer is hard to find in its early stages.

The gallbladder is a small organ behind your lower right ribs and under your liver. The liver creates a fluid called bile that helps your body digest the fats you eat. Your body stores bile in the gallbladder.

Small, early tumors in the gallbladder are hard to find because:

• The gallbladder is hidden deep inside your body, so your doctor can’t feel it for lumps.
• There are no blood tests or other ways to detect early gallbladder cancer.

Some people who have gallbladder cancer don’t know they have it until after they have surgery for a different reason—for example, to remove gallstones from the gallbladder.

In many cases, gallbladder cancer isn’t found until after the tumor has had time to grow larger and spread to the liver or other parts of the abdomen.

Gallstones are the leading risk factor for gallbladder cancer.

A risk factor is anything that increases your chances of getting cancer. That means that a person who has had gallstones in the past has a higher chance of getting gallbladder cancer.

Because women are more likely than men to get gallstones, that means women are also more likely to get gallbladder cancer.

Most people who have gallstones never get gallbladder cancer. It’s a very rare type of cancer. But most people who get gallbladder cancer have had gallstones in the past.

Other risk factors for gallbladder cancer are:

• Weight: Most people who get gallbladder cancer are overweight or obese.
• Age: Most people with gallbladder cancer are 65 or older when they are diagnosed.

Treatment for gallbladder cancer usually includes surgery to remove all or part of the gallbladder.

Your gallbladder helps your body digest fats by storing the bile that is created in the liver. But you can live a normal life without a gallbladder by making some changes to the way you eat. More than 600,000 people have their gallbladders removed every year.

Removal of the gallbladder—a procedure called cholecystectomy—is the recommended treatment for a gallbladder that has a tumor in it. If the cancer has spread beyond the gallbladder, the surgeon also may remove parts of the bile ducts or the liver.

Chemotherapy and radiation treatments may be used if it appears the cancer cells may have spread to other parts of the body.