My husband (66 years old) was operated on today to remove a tumour from his bladder. He was diagnosed with urachal cancer on May 6th. The doctors feel that the tumour was removed in its entirety including 2 cm around the perimeter and a column reaching up to and including the belly button. Although a colonoscopy identified a carpet like mass at the top of his large intestine, they found it to be benign. Nevertheless, since it could become cancerous they removed at 10" of the top of the large intestine and re-attached it during the same procedure.
I know very little about this type of cancer but our Urologist told me that it is a high risk cancer. He has suggested that after recovery, he will be sending my husband to an Oncologist to consider a chemo drug which he says can be effective on this type of cancer. Prior to surgery my husband had CT scans of all his organs and there was no sign of cancer anywhere else. So, for now, there is no sign of it spreading to the liver. The first sign of this was blood in the urine and it took many different tests to determine the cause.
In the meantime, my husband will have a catheter for about 10 days and will be in the hospital about one week. I'm just numb with all of this and so little information that is available. I read that there have been only 200 cases diagnosed since 1863 - can this really be true?
Any information that you can share will be greatly appreciated. I am beside myself.
On 5/5/2009
Ever Hopeful wrote:
Hello, '
My father who is 73 was diagnosed with Urachal Cancer and it has spread to his liver. His Doctor removed the mass that included his belly button, and seemed to think they "got it all" (except his liver). We were told today by his Oncologist that they cannot treat the remaining mass on his liver and it is too large to remove or radiate. We were told that Chemo was not effective in treatment. My question is, has anyone else had this cancer spread to the liver? I have read all of the messages posted, and many of them are several years old....has anyone had sucesses with treatment? We were told today we have 6 months or a year...maybe longer, but that is unacceptable to me and I refuse to give up this early in the game. Please, anything anyone can advise would be greatly appreciated. We are so new to this journey.