What Is Gallbladder Cancer?

Gallbladder cancer is a cancer developing in your gallbladder, a small organ under your liver on the right side of your body. Your gallbladder performs important functions inhelping your body digest fats in foods. But you can live without your gallbladder. Many people with gallbladder cancer have their gallbladder removed for a long, normal life.

Types of Gallbladder Cancers

Ninety percent of gallbladder cancers are adenocarcinomas. These cancers start in your cells with gland-like properties, those lining surfaces on the inside and outside of your body. About six percent of adenocarcinomas are papillary adenocarcinomas, cancers not usually spreading to the liver or lymph nodes. These gallbladder cancers are easily treated into remission.

Less common gallbladder cancers include:

• Adenosquamous carcinomas
• Small cell carcinomas
• Squamous cell carcinomas
• Sarcomas

Risk Factors for Gallbladder Cancers

Risk factors do not predict who will face a gallbladder cancer diagnosis. But these factors do help you understand your risk for having this disease. This means you can use the information to gain important health screenings and watch for early symptoms of gallbladder cancer, for your best chance of successful treatment.

Risk factors for gallbladder cancers include:

• History of gallstones, with three of four people with gallbladder cancer having had a history of gallstones
• Porcelain gallbladder, a condition covering gallbladder lining with calcium deposits
• Female gender, with women having gallbladder cancer twice as often as men
• Obesity
• Older age, with most gallbladder cancer patients being age 65 or older
• Mexican American or Native American ethnicity, with risk being lowest for African Americans
• Choledochal cysts
• Abnormalities of the bile ducts
• Gallbladder polyps
• Primary sclerosing cholangitis
• Industrial and environmental chemical exposure, such as for workers in the rubber and textile industries
• Typhoid, rarely affecting people in the U.S.
• Family history of the disease

Preventing Gallbladder Cancer

There is no known way to prevent gallbladder cancer. But you lower your risk simply by maintaining a healthy weight, eating nutritious foods as part of a healthy diet and remaining active. Obesity closely relates to gallbladder cancer, as well as in occurrence of gallstones, another risk factor for this type of cancer.