Supportive care for biliary tract cancers

Supportive care helps with the physical, practical, emotional and spiritual challenges of cancer. This important part of cancer care focuses on improving the quality of life of people with cancer and their loved ones, especially after treatment has ended.

Adjusting to life after treatment is different for everyone. Your recovery will depend on many different factors, such as where the cancer was in your body, the stage of the cancer, the organs and tissues removed during surgery, the type of treatment and side effects.

If you have been treated for gallbladder or bile duct cancer, you may have the following concerns about biliary tract cancers.

Self-esteem is how you feel about yourself. Body image is how you see your own body. They are often closely linked. Gallbladder or bile duct cancer and its treatments can affect your self-esteem and body image. Often this is because cancer or cancer treatments change your body in different ways. Some of these changes may include:

• scars
• hair loss
• skin problems
• changes in body weight
• loss of one or more body part, such as the gallbladder, pancreas, part of the liver or segment of the small intestine
• yellowing of the skin and whites of the eyes (jaundice)

Some of these changes can be temporary. Others can last for a long time or be permanent.

But treatment can affect your self-esteem or body image, even if it does not change how you look. Other people may not be able to see changes to your body, but you may still worry about how they now see you. These types of worries may affect your self-esteem, making you feel angry or upset, afraid to go out or nervous that others will reject you.

Find out more about coping with body image and self-esteem worries.

It is common for people with gallbladder or bile duct cancer to have problems eating and digesting food after treatment. These problems are caused by the total or partial loss of the gallbladder and other organs involved in digestion (such as the pancreas and liver).

Nutritional problems may include:

• difficulty digesting fatty foods (for example, fried food and deli meat), called fat intolerance

• abdominal pain after eating
• loss of appetite
• nausea and vomiting
• diarrhea
• incontinence
• increased gas or bloating

Your healthcare team, including a registered dietitian, can help you maintain nutrition during and after treatment as well as deal with any side effects.

Many people have advanced or late-stage biliary tract cancer when they are diagnosed. Advanced cancer means that the cancer has spread or is unresectable and is unlikely to be cured. Treatment for unresectable biliary tract cancers is focused on relieving symptoms, controlling the cancer and improving quality of life.

People with advanced gallbladder or bile duct cancer are often in poor health because their biliary tract and surrounding organs (such as the liver, pancreas and small intestine) are no longer working properly. Talk to your healthcare team about ways to manage the following symptoms:

• pain, which can get worse with advanced cancer and may be difficult to manage in the late stages of the disease

• jaundice and extreme itching (pruritis)
• loss of appetite
• nausea and vomiting

Find out more about choosing care and treatment for advanced cancer.

To make decisions that are right for you, ask your healthcare team questions about supportive care.