Why are cancers considered inoperable if they are metastatic?

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I know a couple of surgeons refused to operate on pancreatic cancer without PET results when the cancer was shrunk to 1-2 centimeters. Even if there are metastatic sites and the metastasized cells grow, the original cancer would still be removed, we’d have fewer cancer cells overall. What is the reason that doctors don’t do it?

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30 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

If you have a stray horse loose in your mansion, you can go in and drag it out, problem solved.

If you have a million fleas loose in your mansion… that’s not gonna work.

Even if there’s great clumps of them in one room, all you’re going to do is cause loads of damage, without meaningfully reducing the problem.

Anonymous 0 Comments

If you have a stray horse loose in your mansion, you can go in and drag it out, problem solved.

If you have a million fleas loose in your mansion… that’s not gonna work.

Even if there’s great clumps of them in one room, all you’re going to do is cause loads of damage, without meaningfully reducing the problem.

Anonymous 0 Comments

If you have a stray horse loose in your mansion, you can go in and drag it out, problem solved.

If you have a million fleas loose in your mansion… that’s not gonna work.

Even if there’s great clumps of them in one room, all you’re going to do is cause loads of damage, without meaningfully reducing the problem.

Anonymous 0 Comments

“Fewer cancer cells over all” generally isn’t considered a worthwhile trade for such an invasive surgery. If the remaining cancer cells are metastatic, they’ll just keep spreading right back into the areas you operated on. You’ll wind up missing a chunk of your organs without any significant benefit to show for it.

Overall, your chances of doing better with the surgery (rather than getting no benefit or even ending up worse than you started) are so low that the doctors don’t consider it a worthwhile option.

Anonymous 0 Comments

“Fewer cancer cells over all” generally isn’t considered a worthwhile trade for such an invasive surgery. If the remaining cancer cells are metastatic, they’ll just keep spreading right back into the areas you operated on. You’ll wind up missing a chunk of your organs without any significant benefit to show for it.

Overall, your chances of doing better with the surgery (rather than getting no benefit or even ending up worse than you started) are so low that the doctors don’t consider it a worthwhile option.

Anonymous 0 Comments

“Fewer cancer cells over all” generally isn’t considered a worthwhile trade for such an invasive surgery. If the remaining cancer cells are metastatic, they’ll just keep spreading right back into the areas you operated on. You’ll wind up missing a chunk of your organs without any significant benefit to show for it.

Overall, your chances of doing better with the surgery (rather than getting no benefit or even ending up worse than you started) are so low that the doctors don’t consider it a worthwhile option.

Anonymous 0 Comments

I’m a histopathology doctor so the spread and staging of cancers is one of my core areas of work.

It’s a hugely complicated topic you could very easily write a 100,000 word PhD thesis on, so here’s a very reductive and brief ELI5.

You have vessels that collect waste from your tissues and vessels that supply blood to your tissues. Once malignant cells have entered these vessels, they have a free ride to (almost) every part of your body.

There are quite a few exceptions where surgeons may perform palliative surgery to try and extend life, or remove involved lymph nodes if the spread is very limited. But largely, playing catchup by trying to remove the primary tumours and any new ones that pop up doesn’t extend life or improve health outcomes. It can even do the opposite.

Anonymous 0 Comments

I’m a histopathology doctor so the spread and staging of cancers is one of my core areas of work.

It’s a hugely complicated topic you could very easily write a 100,000 word PhD thesis on, so here’s a very reductive and brief ELI5.

You have vessels that collect waste from your tissues and vessels that supply blood to your tissues. Once malignant cells have entered these vessels, they have a free ride to (almost) every part of your body.

There are quite a few exceptions where surgeons may perform palliative surgery to try and extend life, or remove involved lymph nodes if the spread is very limited. But largely, playing catchup by trying to remove the primary tumours and any new ones that pop up doesn’t extend life or improve health outcomes. It can even do the opposite.

Anonymous 0 Comments

I’m a histopathology doctor so the spread and staging of cancers is one of my core areas of work.

It’s a hugely complicated topic you could very easily write a 100,000 word PhD thesis on, so here’s a very reductive and brief ELI5.

You have vessels that collect waste from your tissues and vessels that supply blood to your tissues. Once malignant cells have entered these vessels, they have a free ride to (almost) every part of your body.

There are quite a few exceptions where surgeons may perform palliative surgery to try and extend life, or remove involved lymph nodes if the spread is very limited. But largely, playing catchup by trying to remove the primary tumours and any new ones that pop up doesn’t extend life or improve health outcomes. It can even do the opposite.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Metastatic means it’s capable of moving around your body freely. So sure they can operate and remove that cancer tumor. But by this point a tonne of these cells will have migrated away from the tumor and will be starting fresh tumors elsewhere.

You’re better off keeping the main tumor to gauge how well chemotherapy is affecting that cancer as you can’t see how many cells have migrated nor where to. But if you can blitz a large group of those cells with the right chemical, you can get rid of all the other little ones too simultaneously