My father was diagnosed with Stage 3 locally advanced pancreatic cancer last Christmas. After three rounds of chemo and one round of chemo-radiation, he is fortunately a candidate for surgery. As with every stage of this disease, we have different views from two highly qualified surgeons. One at Sloan believes the tissue surrounding the celiac axis is inflammation not cancer. He'll remove the tumor, but doesn't believe the vessels are involved and won't address them (let's hope he's right!). The other at Columbia is certain the tissue IS cancer and would recommend an Appleby to remove the artery, reroute the blood vessels, and then do nanoknife to scrape the remaining vessels. It could be effective, but is also higher risk. And since it's six weeks from when he finished radiation, we have to do the surgery next week, and basically make up our minds before Thanksgiving in order to schedule it.
Has anyone had any experience with this? Advice???
Thank you!!