Chapter 842: [(842)] Need teamwork Chapter 842: [(842)] Need teamwork According to He Jiuliang’s experience, if patients of this age have any metastasis, the surgery would have been done in vain. Moreover, although the size of the tumor was not large, it was certainly not small either–it was almost 3 centimeters.
Ideally, the discovery of cancer should be controlled within 1 centimeter, since tumors smaller than 1 centimeter have a minimal possibility of invading other organs, and a very high five-year survival rate. However, in our country, it’s really hard to catch these early-stage tumors. They are found more frequently overseas, which indeed excels in cancer screening compared to our country.
For tumors not in an extremely early stage, it’s tough for both the patients and the doctors, and the outcome is often tragic, especially in pancreatic cancer, where there are no targeted drugs. Once cancer metastasizes, the struggle becomes about medication, not just surgery.
Therefore, Xie Wanying brought up the issue of medication to Tao Zhijie from the start, considering this point.
With no other choice, they had to rely on the surgeons to fight harder in terms of surgery.
“It’s possible,” Song Xueling concluded after finishing his calculations based on the reality he witnessed, making the Chief Surgeon’s judgment.
“What?” He Jiuliang almost thought he was going deaf–he hadn’t heard any of what he had just said.
“Do a biopsy,” Song Xueling decided it was feasible to proceed with the biopsy during surgery, waiting for the rapid report from the pathology department to determine the range of surgery, thus completely rejecting He Jiuliang’s earlier suggestion and indirectly implying that the patient’s situation was not as severe as He Jiuliang thought.
“Do you think the pathology results will be relatively good?” He Jiuliang asked, sensing the implication.
“Not me, Dr. Xie thinks so,” Song Xueling replied honestly, “we are a team.”
Well, look at the rookie, creating his own team for the challenge. He Jiuliang didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, and then asked Xie Wanying, “What did you say?”
Xie Wanying honestly answered her senior’s question, “If it’s a young female patient, a pancreatic solid pseudopapillary tumor is quite common, and her tumor happened to be located at the tail of the pancreas. Even if it turns cancerous, solid pseudopapillary tumors are of low malignancy and primarily metastasize to the peritoneum if they invade at all. With complete surgical removal, the survival period can be long.”
“The patient’s CT doesn’t quite look cancer,” He Jiuliang remembered the CT imaging did not bode well for predicting the malignancy of the tumor, thus initially Tao Zhijie worried the patient had a highly malignant pancreaticoblastoma.
“Pancreatoblastomas are more common in children,” Xie Wanying added.
As a former pathologist, she was quite clear about the demographics for these two types of cancer. There might be rare cases across age groups, but they are extremely uncommon.
“Moreover, her gastrointestinal symptoms have persisted for a long time. If it was a pancreatoblastoma, it would have progressed very quickly,” Xie Wanying continued, “rather, her cancer cells are the result of recent benign exacerbation.”
He Jiuliang pondered her words while asking Song Xueling, “Have you decided to take her advice?”
The pressure from his senior was palpable. Feeling that Xie Wanying’s analysis seemed reasonable but unable to be completely certain without clear evidence, he could only say, “We will wait for the pathology analysis.” Song Xueling voiced this through a husky tone that revealed his overly calm demeanor during surgery.
Look at these two rookies, taking charge of surgery for the first time as Chief Surgeon and Chief Surgeon’s Assistant, trying to act utterly professional. He Jiuliang stood by, waiting to observe their subsequent performance.
As the door to the operating room swung open, Tao Zhijie returned as scheduled. He scrubbed his hands, put on his surgical gown, and joined the operation table, entering a total guiding state, first asking about the investigation results: “What’s the situation?”