Dale's Story: Successful Removal of 3/4 of liver in rare cancer surgery for Abu Dhabi teacher скачать в хорошем качестве

Dale's Story: Successful Removal of 3/4 of liver in rare cancer surgery for Abu Dhabi teacher

Abu Dhabi schoolteacher Dale Yost didn’t suspect even for a minute that a sudden itch all over his body could be anything more than a simple dermatological issue. The 66-year-old resident thought that the pills and creams prescribed by a dermatologist would solve the problem. But when the itching persisted, he began worrying. Additional bloodwork and scans done at the first hospital that he visited when the symptoms began revealed that he was suffering from gallbladder and bile duct cancer. “It sounds so strange that an itch can be a sign of cancer,” says Dale. “They could tell by the scans that my bile ducts were plugged and so all the bile was building in my body and causing jaundice and the itchiness. The doctors twice tried to put stents in so that the bile could flow into the small bowel again, with no luck.” He says they then tried a biliary drain, a procedure where bile is collected in a bag outside of the body. “I had that pouch on me for a couple of weeks before the hospital recommended that I transfer to Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi for the complex surgery to remove the cancer.” Dr Naveed Ahmed, the Hepato-Pancreatico-Biliary surgeon (liver, pancreas, and bile duct) in the Digestive Disease Institute at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi – an integral part of Mubadala Health – who treated Dale with a multidisciplinary team of physicians, dieticians, and wound care nurses in November 2020, says their attempt to clear the blocked bile ducts and relieve the symptoms of jaundice with stents was a success. This approach was necessary to continue his treatment to remove the cancer. The team had to carry out a central hepatectomy, where they had to not only remove the bile duct and gallbladder completely, but also had to resect three-quarters of Dale’s liver to cure him.