25-pound tumor wrested from Berkeley man's liver

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

25-pound tumor wrested from Berkeley man's liver
Dave Murphy, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, May 28, 2005

The prospect of removing a cancerous 25-pound tumor from John Frick's liver was daunting enough, but Dr. Sherry Wren got some stunning news the night before his surgery.

Wren, the chief of general surgery at the Palo Alto Veterans Affairs hospital, had always thought she would be able to deprive the tumor's arteries of their blood supply during surgery. But tests showed that such a strategy would make the surgery even riskier and make the 63-year-old Berkeley man's chances of survival far lower than the 50 percent she had expected.

"His tumor had arteries in it that were bigger than his liver's artery," Wren said. "It looked like a 20-pound turkey sitting in there.''

Even without weighing 25 pounds, such a gastrointestinal stromal tumor in the liver is rare and often inoperable because of the organ's large and precarious blood vessels. Wren's research found only one other example of the surgery being done in the world, and that was on a smaller tumor.

More at: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/05/28/TUMOR.TMP

[xultar]

1. What no Pix?

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

2. I was hoping to spare you, but since you asked...

"George" the 25 lb. tumor



Remember, YOU ASKED FOR IT!

[xultar]

3. OMFG that shoulda come with an effin warning!

:P/