[History, current situation and bottleneck of the diagnosis and treatment system of hepatic hilar cholangiocarcinoma in Japan].

Hilar cholangiocarcinoma is one of the most difficult malignant tumors to treat in the biliary system. In Japan, 5-year survival rate of the disease has increased from 32.5% to 67.1% during the past 30 years. The impressive progress reflects the solid efforts in preoperative endoscopic diagnosis, innovation in surgery such as PTPE as well as hepato-pancreatoduodenectomy and perioperative treatment including replacement of the bile and synbiotic treatment, which have finally formed a set of standardized diagnosis and treatment systems. The present review intends to report the history, current status and remaining bottlenecks of the diagnosis and treatment system of hilar cholangiocarcinoma in Japan as follows.