Doug Reilly's Weblog

Embedded Reporting of the Information Age...

Steve Jobs has surgery for Pancreatic cancer

According to this article, this weekend Steve Jobs had surgery for a rare form of pancreatic cancer.  The article notes that he did not have an adenocarcinoma, but rather a islet cell neuroendocrine tumor, which is, thankfully, much more likely to be cured surgically.

This is interesting to me, since just 2 months ago today, I had a Whipple Procedure (and in my case as well, it was not for an adenocarcinoma, but rather a possible future adenocarcinoma in the stomach and duodenum as well as polyps growing into my bile duct).  Generally, when you have any sort of pancreatic tumor, they perform a Whipple procedure, which removes the duodenum, at least part of the pancreas and sometimes part of the stomach.  The article does not specify what surgery Steve had. 

If anyone who knows Steve reads this, and he is looking for how one geek did recovering from pancreas surgery, I am here<g>.

Good luck, Steve!

UPDATE: Comments on this post are closed (the spam prevention thing that Scott added to the CS:Blogs program), but I wanted to answer Julie's questions:  The surgery lasted quite a while, perhaps 7-8 hours.  I have had two prior surgeries (colon removal in 1987 for preventive reasons, liver resection in 1998 for primary liver cancer that had not spread) and so had lots of scar tissue that made the surgery difficult.  I had the whipple and a seperate resection in another portion of the stomach.  I was in the hospital for 12 days.  From my experience with liver surgery, one problem with that surgery is that because most pain meds are metabilized in the liver, after liver surgery, they go a little lighter on pain meds than I would have liked.  I did not find the post-Whipple time frame to be a problem pain-wise, but was amazingly tired all the time.  My surgery was 3 months ago today, and I feel great.  Lost 40+ pounds (which was not a problem, I needed to loose some weight).  Lots of details at this web site I set up for family and friends.  The surgery was done by Dr. Yuman Fong at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in NYC.

Please feel free to contact me at the Contact link on the blog if you want any more information about the surgeries or recovery.

 

Posted: Aug 01 2004, 09:13 PM by douglas.reilly | with 8 comment(s)
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Comments

Edgar Deal said:

Doug, congratualtions on your apparent successful Whipple Surgery. I recently (July2,04) had surgery identical to that of Stave Jobs (removal of neuroendocren islet cell tumor from my pancreas). 1/3 of my pancreas was removed resulting in it being in 2 sections. The pancreas head veins and ducts were properly sealed and the remaining tail portion was attached to the small intestine near the duodemum. Pathology indicated the removal was complete with no residual cancer cells. Nuclear imaging prior to surgery did not identify highlighting suggesting mestastatic involvment. Current prognosis: I was cured. Follow up CT and Nuclear scans in 6 months will confirm or contradict that. I feel positive. There are numerous nuances and variations of these rare tumers which when located on or in the pancreas are exceedingly rare. Also the Whipple surgery, as I understand it, is performed primarily on the adrenocarcinoma tumers descovered early enough to be determined "operable". The endocrene tumers are much smaller (usually 2 cm or less if descovered before mestastasis) and not likely to be treated with Whipple Surgery. ----- Too much to relate here. Good luck to you as well, Doug.

In closing this short note, I would like to share my knowledge and experiences in more detail with those who have had the same surgery that Steve Jobs and I had.
# August 7, 2004 11:54 AM

Doug Reilly said:

Thanks for the info. I am certainly more familiar with the adenocarcinomas likely to form in the ampula.

Just out of curiosity, how was your tumor diagnosed? I have a condition presdisposing me to a number of forms of cancer, and a number of years ago had a tumor of about the same size as your pancreatic tumor diagnosed in my liver incidentally while following up on kidney stone attack (followed by apparently curative liver resection).
# August 7, 2004 12:57 PM

edgar deal said:

Discovered during Routine CT after routine endoscopy and colonoscopy revealed small bulge on end of appendix which turned out to be coblet cell carcinoid (endocrene tunor). Got it out clean and textbook next step removed cecum where appendix was attached - path showed all clean -- but get routine CT followup in 6 months which showed 3cm mass at or in pancreas . Multitude of tests including nuclear showed endocrine tumor which ws removed totally (surgery described in first note) with again path showing clean. Another CT in 6 months (along with nuculear imaging). Two of these rare tumors in one person in 6 months suggest a condition called "Multiple Endocrine neoplasms". Imaging did not indicate but will see in 6 months).
# August 7, 2004 7:17 PM

Doug Reilly said:

I have Familial Adenomatous Polyposis, a disease that causes many thousands of polyps throughout the digestive tract, as well as a propensity for a number of different types of tumors, including Desmoid tumors (generally thought of as benign, but locally invasive and can be life threatening as they invade the space other organs occupy).

Good luck with your treatments and tests!
# August 8, 2004 2:42 PM

Julie said:

My husband is going to have whipple surgery and half of his liver removed. He was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma of the duodenum with mets to the liver.
We would like to know about your experiance with the Whipple. How long did the surgery last? Where did you have it done? How long in ICU? How long in Hospital? We are probably having this done in the next month. Thanks for sharing your experiance.
Julie
# August 28, 2004 2:02 AM

Don Smason said:

I had the Whipple procedure performed in Mid May, 2004. Lucky for me, my tumor was not cancerous, but it was the size of a baseball. Surgery was done in Evanston, Illinois. Half of my stomach was removed in the 6-1/2 hour surgery. I was in ICU for only one day. I stayed in the hospital for 12 days and never felt one bit of pain. My digestion is still not what it was and may never be. I find my personal habits have also changed. Good luck.
# August 31, 2004 8:27 PM

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# June 10, 2008 3:02 AM

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# December 17, 2008 12:12 PM
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