VIDEO: ‘Early diagnosis absolutely remains a significant challenge’ in cholangiocarcinoma

Editor’s note: This is a previously posted video, and the below is an automatically generated transcript to be used for informational purposes. Please notify editor@healio.com if there are concerns regarding accuracy of the transcription.

There's several different areas that would classify sort of under unmet needs in cholangiocarcinoma. Early diagnosis absolutely remains a significant challenge. The majority of patients with cholangiocarcinoma would present with advanced-stage disease for which we have very limited treatment options. Patients who are eligible for potentially curative surgical treatments, such as resection or liver transplantation, they tend to have early-stage disease. However, these patients are amongst the minority, and the majority of patients have advanced-stage disease for which surgery and essentially, many of the options that could offer a cure are not an option. And so for those patients, we need more effective systemic treatment options. And if we were able to diagnose patients at an earlier stage, then we would have a larger subset of patients who could be offered potentially curative treatment options. And so, that's certainly an unmet need. And then, as I said, more effective systemic treatment options. We've reviewed that there have been, you know, many recent approvals, however, it's important to remember that many of these new targeted therapies that have been approved or the ones that are currently under investigation, they're still applicable only to a minority of cholangiocarcinoma patients because they're applicable to patients who harbor the genetic alterations. Most patients don't. And furthermore, the response from many of these newer agents, whether that be targeted therapies or the systemic therapies, it just does not tend to be durable. And so, there's a need for development of treatments that are more effective and that effectiveness is longer-lasting or more durable. So I think that those are likely the two biggest areas of unmet need in cholangiocarcinoma.