Best life: Esophageal cancer treatment

CHICAGO, Ill. (Ivanhoe Newswire) – Eating is something most of us take for granted.

We do it three times a day – that adds up to more than a thousand meals a year. What if you had trouble eating? Every bite was hard to swallow.

That’s the case for more than 21,000 people diagnosed each year with esophageal cancer. Now, innovative robotic technology is helping these people eat pain-free once again.

Orange Jell-O never tasted so good! One day after 77-year-old Rudy Bland had part of his esophagus removed, he could eat and drink! That wouldn’t have happened five years ago.

Rudy was diagnosed with Barrett’s of the esophagus a decade ago which put him at risk for esophageal cancer.

“I was just going in for a normal colonoscopy, and that’s when they found the cancer spots,” said Rudy.

Until recently, he would have had to undergo a very invasive surgery involving lengthy incisions across his chest and stomach. Thoracic surgeon at Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute, Ankit Bharat, MD, is one of the first to perform the premier program.

“It’s a minimal invasive, no muscle cutting, no bone cutting, no rib cutting,” said Dr. Bharat.

Using a robot, several small incisions are made in the belly. Through these incisions, surgeons remove the cancerous part of the esophagus.

“We take the food pipe out, we have to replace it with something else. So, we use the stomach to make a tube out of the stomach to replace the food pipe,” said Dr. Bharat.

The new approach reduces hospital stays from one month to two days, there’s less pain, less risk of infection, and no feeding tube.

Because the stomach is smaller, Rudy now eats eight small meals a day. He hopes, one day, he can soon take his wife out to dinner to properly celebrate their 52 years.

Because the Premier procedure is less invasive, surgeons hope that more people who may not have been healthy enough for the more invasive operation will have a new alternative for treatment.

Contributors to this news report include: Marsha Lewis, Producer; Kirk Manson, Videographer; Roque Correa, Editor.

Click here to sign up for our newsletter!

Click here to report a spelling or grammar error. Please include the headline.

Copyright 2023 WMC. All rights reserved.