Dr. Suddhasattwa Sen answers common questions about GI cancer, surgery, recovery, and treatment options in Kolkata, helping patients understand gastrointestinal conditions and advanced surgical care.
GI cancer FAQs include symptoms, treatment options, recovery time, and surgical procedures for liver, pancreas, stomach, and colorectal cancers.
GI cancer treatment includes surgery, chemotherapy, and advanced minimally invasive procedures depending on the stage and type of cancer.
Only a small number of them are for patients with liver cancer. ... Possible risks and side effects: Like partial hepatectomy, a liver transplant is a major operation with serious risks (bleeding, infection, blood clots, complications from anesthesia, etc.). But there are some additional risks after this surgery.
Liver resection requires general anesthesia. The operation can take 2 to 5 hours. A blood transfusion is not usually needed for this operation. You may stay in the hospital for 5 to 7 days or as long as 2 weeks after surgery.
Liver donors provide part of the liver to a recipient. The livers of both the donor and recipient grow back to full size approximately three months after the surgery. There is no financial or medical benefit to donating a kidney or part of your liver, but helping another person live can be a very rewarding experience.
Regional means the cancer has grown into nearby organs or has spread to nearby lymph nodes, and includes stages IIIC and IVA cancers. For regional stage liver cancer, the 5-year survival rate is about 11%. Distant means that the cancer has spread to distant organs or tissues and is the same as stage IVB.
A liver transplant is not useful if the cancer has spread out of the liver, because there will be cancer cells left behind in the body after the operation. So the operation would not get rid of all the cancer. You may not be able to have a liver transplant if you have very severe liver cirrhosis.
The liver, however, is able to replace damaged tissue with new cells. If up to 50 - 60 percent of the liver cells may be killed within 3 - 4 days in an extreme case like a Tylenol overdose, the liver will repair completely after 30 days if no complications arise.
Staging a cancer helps determine the prognosis of the disease, which is the chance of recovery, and the types of treatment that are most appropriate. In general, only early-stage liver cancer can be cured. ... Metastatic (secondary) liver cancer is cancer that has spread from another part of the body to the liver.
Usually the digestive enzymes stay in one part of the pancreas. But if these enzymes leak into other parts of the pancreas, they can irritate it and cause pain and swelling. This may happen suddenly or over many years. Over time, it can damage and scar the pancreas.
While you will be able to leave the hospital after a few days or weeks, remember that a full recovery from pancreas surgery can take two months or longer.
Acute pancreatitis. ... In severe cases, acute pancreatitis can result in bleeding into the gland, serious tissue damage, infection, and cyst formation. Severe pancreatitis can also harm other vital organs such as the heart, lungs, and kidneys.
These tumors are more likely to be cured with surgery. Curative surgery is done mainly to treat cancers in the head of the pancreas. Because these cancers are near the bile duct, they often cause jaundice, which sometimes allows them to be found early enough to be removed.
Most gastric bypass surgery is laparoscopic, which means the surgeon makes small cuts. That makes for shorter recovery time. Most people stay in the hospital 2 to 3 days, and get back to normal activities in 3 to 5 weeks. If the surgery must be "open," meaning the surgeon has to make a larger cut, healing takes longer.
After surgery, most patients return to work in one or two weeks. You will have low energy for a while after surgery and may need to have some half days, or work every other day for your first week back. Your surgeon will give you clear instructions.
The symptoms of stomach cancer may include discomfort and/or pain in the stomach, nausea and vomiting, weight loss, difficulty swallowing, vomiting blood, blood in the stool, and feeling full or bloated after a small meal. ... Chemotherapy is the use of drugs to kill cancer cells: it may be used before or after surgery.
The surgeon removes the entire stomach, nearby lymph nodes, and omentum, and may remove the spleen and parts of the esophagus, intestines, pancreas, or other nearby organs. The end of the esophagus is then attached to part of the small intestine. This allows food to move down the intestinal tract.