Primary Ampulla Cancer

My wife who is 54 just had a pylorus preserving whipple done. The pathology showed a 1.7cm tumor in he Ampulla and her lymph nodes were negative for cancer. Clean margins. We have been scared since this is so rare and reading the posts by others have been a great source of information. She is still in the hospital and we have not talked To any oncologists yet about post operative therapy. The doctors here at our hospital have not really treated this so I would love to get some recommendations to doctors you know who have treated this cancer with good success. Thank you!

I'm sorry your wife has to go through this at all.  There are some very knowledgeable people here and I'm sure they'll be along soon with some suggestions for you.  That being said, it's great news that she had clean margins and no lymph note involvement!

How long has she been in the hospital, and how long do they expect her to be there?

I haven't had my surgery yet, so I'm still trying to gather info myself.

 

Hello, I am a woman of 54 and 14 months ago I onderwent the pylorus preserving Whipple operation. I had a 2,5 cm adenocarcinoma tumor in the Ampulla, my lymphnodes and margins were clean. I only had the Whipple, no radiation, no chemo. I am doing fine. I live in Holland. If you want to ask something, do, because by now I know a lot about ampullary cancer. I cannot help you with recommendations to doctors, because I live in Holland.

Linda

Linda - thank you so much for the note on this.  It sounds like your recovery has been going well.  Congrats!

How is you wife doing? Is she already out of hospital? What are the doctors going to do? I hope she is doing fine!

Linda

I was able to bring her home yesterday and she is happy to be out of the hospital.  We go back in two weeks to have the drain tubes removed then we will see the oncologist to discuss follow-up options for Chemo/Radiation as Adjuvant Therapy.  We are also planning on going to MD Anderson and the Mayo Clinic to talk to their oncologists as well.  The doctors believe they have it all but we want to be agressive.  Also, her Pancreas margin came back as precancerous.  This scares the heck out of us since there is little out there on this.  The doctor said something to watch closely but does not mean it will turn to cancer but certainly a higher odds of it in my opinion.  If it turns to cancer, they would have to remove the total pancreas which would not be fun for her.  We will be watching this very very close from now on.  We will feel better informed once we talk about her pathology with the oncologist.  Fingers crossed big time.

I feel that if well enough aggressive is better with these cancers and the theory behind chemo-radiation (chemo even if as bookends as a sensitizer making cells more sensitive to radiation) is that it should reduce risk of local recurrences and theory behind chemo alone later is distant recurrences.  I may have written privately, assumed you got it.  I post under my pen name here.  I had early, small ampullary, same surgery and one of two opinions was surgery was enough but second opinion didn't agree and I went with more aggressive treatment.  The amount of differentiation matters, as does if it is in nerves, in lymph, whether pancreatic or intestinal tissue type or a mix.  You have a good plan of action.  J