Neoplasms of the Biliary Tree

Neoplasms of the biliary tree include a wide spectrum of lesions that range from benign tumors, such as adenomas, to malignant lesions, such as adenocarcinomas. Cholangiocarcinoma is the tumor of the biliary tract that has the highest incidence and the poorest prognosis, which depends most of all on the therapeutic strategy. Accurate characterization in terms of diagnosis and staging of the neoplasms can be crucial for determining prognosis and treatment planning, and different imaging techniques can be used to achieve the best diagnostic setting of the case. Magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography (MRCP) is one of the best imaging techniques for the depiction of the biliary tree, and it can be very helpful in cases of tumors with poor prognosis in which a life-saving therapeutic strategy depends mostly on the initial staging of the disease (e.g., in cholangiocarcinoma). For these reasons, in this chapter, cholangiocarcinoma is first comprehensively described, and following on from this there are brief descriptions of benign neoplasms of the biliary tree.