www.insidebayarea.com/sanmateocountytimes/ci_11473645 -
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Published on: 1/16/2009
Last Visited: 1/17/2009
Patients with Jobs's condition can survive for 20 years or more from the time of their original cancer diagnosis, and the surgery often gives good results, said Steven Brower, professor and chairman of surgery at Mercer University School of Medicine in Savannah, Georgia.
Brower hasn't treated Jobs and doesn't know details of his condition.
...
One option doctors have in these cases is to perform a liver transplant, Brower said.
"It's one of the tumors for which transplantation can be considered," said Brower, who is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
...
Brower said the transplant might work out well in a patient whose neuroendocrine cancer began in the pancreas, in part because this tumor type often spreads only to the liver and grows so slowly.
Even after having had a Whipple procedure, a patient might expect to have good quality of life, he said.
"The outcome can be quite good," he said.
"With immunosuppressive drugs, the patient can expect to have a significant, durable life expectancy."
Some liver transplant patients get part of an organ from a living donor.
After the operation, the livers of the donor and recipient grow back to normal size.
A patient getting a liver transplant for a neuroendocrine tumor that has spread from the pancreas might get a partial organ, Brower said.
Complete organs that come from cadavers are in short supply, and are generally reserved for patients with liver failure, cirrhosis or certain kinds of liver cancer, he said.
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