Husband to have portal vein embolization
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Hi dboms,
My simple understanding of it is that They block part of the blood supply to a certain part of the liver which forces the part of the liver with a normal blood supply to grow. It was done for my sister as her planned resection would result in only leaving behind 14% of her liver. By doing the embolisation to ‘bulk up’ her liver, the unaffected part that they needed to leave behind grew over 4 weeks to 24%.
This is great news Surfer! Thanks for sharing with us all and tons and tons of positive thoughts are heading your way too! My fingers are crossed for the best possible outcome, good luck.
Best wishes,
Gavin
Dear Surfer1
I had the portal vein embolisation procedure in November 2011 prior to a resection in january 2012. It was carried out under general anaesthetic and was quick and totally painless. Following the procedure, diet was important. Eat lots of green and red vegetables, drink lots and generally eat as much as one can – little and often. The liver uses up a lot of calories in the growing process and tiredness can be an issue. My liver grew 24% in 3 weeks and feeding it helps. Look up foods that stimulate liver growth on the Internet and just eat eat eat.
Thinking of you
Sandie
XOh WOW this is huge news. I don’t know much about this procedure but many blessings and I hope for the best for you guys and that left side gets growing.
Please keep us posted and I will be thinking about you guys on Tuesday. Best of luck.At our November 2013 appointment at UCI we were told to do two more months of chemo and then rescan to see if resection would be an option. In the meantime we self referred ourselves to Dr. Selby at USC since our insurance doesn’t contract with them. I’ll deal with the bill when it comes and it was very much worth seeing him. He was very informative and helpful. His opinion is that the resection surgery should be done now. He said His case would be a “delicate” surgery because of the tumor’s size and proximity to major veins, but that it can be done and if not done, the tumor can spread and it would be too late to have surgery as an option. Insurance is still a roadblock to have the surgery done at USC but Dr. Selby recommended Dr. Colquhoun at Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles. Our insurance contracts with them and we met with Dr. Colquhoun at the end of December.
That appointment went well and he didn’t necessarily disagree with the two opinions we had so far but wanted to have his case reviewed by their multidisciplinary team and thought that he should have the portal vein embolization procedure done by their interventional radiologist prior to the resection to make sure he will have enough liver afterwards to survive. He is scheduled to have that done on Tuesday so wish us luck that goes well and his left lobe grows. He is continuing chemo in the meantime and that is getting harder for him. I hope this all goes well and he will have a resection as soon as possible.
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