How common is biliary tract cancer?

Biliary tract cancer is most common between the ages of 60 and 70

Biliary tract cancer is relatively uncommon, accounting for less than 1% of all human cancers. It is most commonly diagnosed in people between the ages of 60 and 70 years and affects slightly more men than women (Valle et al., 2016).

The incidence of CCA varies widely between countries, reflecting exposure to different risk factors (Banales et al. 2016) . Incidence is low in Europe, the USA and Australasia, with an annual rate of only 0.3–3.5 cases per 100,000 people. However, CCA rates are much higher in countries where liver fluke infection is common – for example, Northeast Thailand has an annual incidence rate of 90 cases per 100,000 people (Valle et al., 2016).

Gallbladder cancer also has a low annual incidence rate in Western Europe and the USA (1.6–2 per 100,000) but rates are much higher in other parts of the world, including Chile where annual incidence rates are 24.3 per 100,000 in women and 8.6 per 100,000 in men (Valle et al., 2016).

Ampullary cancer is extremely rare, with annual incidence rates of 0.2–0.6 per 100,000 people (Rostain et al., 2014).