My Brother Diagnosed with Cholangiocarcinoma

My brother, who is now 51, was diagnosed with this disease in late 2012. He originally went to doctors here in Charleston, SC, but they gave him no hope and basically told him they couldn’t do anything for him (and they didn’t). At that time he was very ill, jaundiced badly and weight loss, and a lot of other complications. In a nutshell, we ended up going to Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL, where he was given a couple of options, one was chemo and radiation therapy, then surgery to rebuild his bile duct (the klatskin tumor was in the “Y” section of his bile duct) and remove his liver and also his gallbladder, and then a liver transplant, which Mayo preferred this. The second option was to do their best to remove the klatskin tumor, remove about 40-45% of his liver, and rebuild his bile duct, followed by chemotherapy. He was advised if he chose the 2nd option they could not do radiation therapy and with this choice, he could never receive a liver transplant (but at that time his liver was ok) and chemotherapy probably wouldn’t help, and that he probably had 2-3 years of life left. We did go to Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Chicago for a 2nd opinion, and they advised they would do the surgery to resect the bile, as they felt it would be a better option. We went back to Mayo and they did do the bile duct resection in February of 2013. He also chose to do a round of chemo.

In Oct. 2014 he had emergency surgery to remove his appendix, which was cancerous and new lesions were discovered after that in the sack that holds your organs all together, he started another round of chemo, but we got to talking about clinical trials and started the process of entering into one in Feb. 2015 at Wake Forest Memorial Baptist Hospital in North Carolina. However, this did not work out, as some of the qualifications needed physically with certain blood stats, etc. he did not meet. I found another clinical trial which is a new one starting here in Charleston, SC (Roper St. Francis Hospital) for CC patients that received chemotherapy after surgery and it did not work. They are currently reviewing his records to see if he will qualify for the trial. I found a lot of information on the http://www.clinicaltrials.gov website, so if you by chance haven’t looked, it lists 300+ clinical trials.

He has been through so much physically, mentally and emotionally these past few years with his health, but I admire him greatly as he has kept a positive attitude and he hasn’t lost hope. He had to stop chemotherapy about a month and half ago before he could enter into any clinical trials and actually feels better than he has in a long time. Got his appetite back, sleeps now, works every day.

To all of you, pray every day, miracles do happen. Blessings to all of you. I will continue to look for updates on y’all. Thank you for your time.