Last week a team of surgeons successfully performed one of the most complicated and long-duration surgery—the Whipple operation at the Kasturba Hospital, Sewagram. This is indicated patients suffering from cancer of pancreas or bile duct and demands skillful and delicate tissue dissection around the vital structures in the abdominal cavity. It involves removal of cancerous pancreas, bile duct, gallbladder and a part of small intestine followed by multiple critical anatomoses to re-establish bowel continuity. For these reasons this operation is rarely done in most of the hospitals of our region.
The patient operated a fortnight ago was a 55 year-old gentleman suffering from cancer around his bile duct that led to severe jaundice. When he came to Kasturba Hospital he was very weak and had lost about 10 kg weight due to the disease. However, due to lack of money he delayed approaching any doctor. After immediately admitting him he was thoroughly investigated. His CT scan showed bile duct cancer and massively distended gallbladder that was about to burst. After examining him in detail, Dr. Priyadarshan Jategaonkar, Surgical Gastroenterologist & Advance Laparoscopic Surgeon working at Kasturba Hospital, soon successfully performed the Whipple operation upon the patient that lasted for about 8 hours. Following this, the patient had very good recovery in the ward and he walked freely from 2nd day of the operation. Now, he is eating well and about to be discharged from the hospital.
“Whipple surgery carries a risk of severe bleeding at any stage of the operation. Also, the stitches on pancreas or intestine are prone for leakage. This could be life-threatening. However, we are happy that we could do all this successfully, not only in this patient but all the previous 7 or 8 patients who underwent this surgery over last 3-4 years. It is also important to recognize that such a supra major endeavor is never a single-man show but always a well-organized team work and I give full credit to my surgical as well as anesthesia teams for doing a wonderful job”, Dr. Jategaonkar said,
The operating team led by Dr. Jategaonkar comprised of Dr. Ramesh Pandey, Dr. Saurabh, Dr. Ranjit, Dr. Prajyot and Dr. Jinit and the anesthesia was given by Dr. Dhiraj Bhandari. Subsequently, Dr. Jategaonkar has warned people not to take any sort of jaundice lightly as this can be the beginning of cancer. He further added that, if reported at an early stage it could be cured completely after such an operation. Hence he has encouraged people with jaundice to come forward for treatment at Gastroenterology center like that of Kasturba Hospital, Sewagram.