Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) is the second as frequency primary liver cancer after hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), arising from the biliary epithelium of the second branch (segmental branch) or the proximal branch of bile duct (1,2). Recent reports suggest that the incidence of ICC varies considerably according to geographical location, and accounts for about 5-30% of primary liver cancers, with an increasing incidence during the past years all over the world (3-6). Radical resection (R0) remains the only potential curative treatment, but the resectability rate is still low because of late diagnosis. In general, prognosis is poor, with a reported rate of 5-year survival, usually below 20 to 40% for patients with potentially curative resection (7).
However, the recent progress in anesthesiology and intensive care, the development of more effective surgical techniques in hepatobiliary surgery, and the advent of new devices for parenchymal trans-section made more applicable aggressive surgical approaches for ICC, improving the resectability rate in the last two decades (8,9).