Ripple with Whipple

The pancreatic cancer had wrapped around a nearby critical vein which had to be cut out. Over almost nine hours of surgery on Geri Perrotte in January 2010, Dr Malcolm Bilimoria carefully cut away the tumor and kept sending samples to the laboratory until he was sure there were no cancer cells in the remaining tissue. To replace the damaged portion of the portal vein he used a section of vein from Perrotte’s neck, notes a detailed write-up on the oncologist and the surgery titled "Surgeon tackles ‘inoperable’ pancreatic cancer” by Robert McCoppin in the Daily Herald of April 19, 2010.

"It’s tricky work. In a surgery this big, there are so many places you can get tripped up. But there’s no magic in these hands. All there is, is my own perseverance, my own blood, sweat and tears, and a lot of experience to try and see if I can hit a home run,” commented the oncology surgeon who is known to have performed this Whipple procedure more than 700 times. This surgery to cut out a pancreatic tumor typically involves removing a portion of the gallbladder, bile duct and duodenum, then reattaching everything directly to the intestine. It is only recommended for those cases where the cancer is diagnosed before it has spread and where the patients are younger and otherwise healthy. Post surgery patients get radiation and chemotherapy to kill any remaining cells that might have survived surgery.

Dr Malcolm Bilimoria (right) offered a new life line to patient Geri Perrotte

A post-operative scan showed that 63-year-old Perrotte had no signs of cancer so she has happily resumed her normal lifestyle when just a few months earlier she was making plans for her death.

Bilimoria learned his craft at Northwestern University and the Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, then worked at Evanston Hospital before joining the Northwest Community Hospital last year for the opening of its Illinois Center for Pancreatic and Hepatobiliary Disease which specializes in the treatment of the pancreas, liver and bile ducts.

Considering that 75 percent of patients with pancreatic cancer die within the first year of diagnosis and 95 percent die within five years, Perrotte wants to share her message of hope with others. Bilimoria on the other hand is trying to prove that a community hospital can offer the same high level of service as the big teaching hospitals. Having just returned from a volunteer trip to Bolivia where he conducted 34 charity surgeries in a week, he finds inspiration in his patients, particularly those who "are fighters.”