Carcinoma of the extrahepatic bile ducts: a postmortem study of 65 cases and review of the literature.

From 1950 to 1982, 65 patients with carcinoma of the extrahepatic bile ducts were autopsied in the Institute of Pathology of the University of Düsseldorf. The average age of men was 64.5 years and that of women was 70 years. The ratio of men to women was 1 to 1.71. The greatest number of tumors was found in the common bile duct (40.1%), followed by the hepatic ducts (29.2%) and the confluence of the common hepatic duct with the cystic duct (27.7%). Adenocarcinomas of various differentiation were found in 96.7% of the cases and anaplastic carcinoma in 3.3%. Metastases were present in 49 cases (75.4%). Cholelithiasis was found in 51% of the cases. The results of the present postmortem study are compared with the literature.