stomach cancer

This is a cross post to the VSG board also. I know someone her might have an answer for me, you ladies are such a wealth of knowledge.

I have a friend that had LAP vertical sleeve about a year ago. He was doing so well with his weight loss. Basically his whole life was going well.

This weekend he had a huge boating in his stomach with enough discomfort to send him to the ER. After some testing he was told he has advanced stage stomach cancer that has travel into other organs in his body..He is dying..

I can help but wonder, if he had it prior to his sleeve and it wasnt caught...I thought a biopsy was a standard procedure of any organ or part or partial part of a body that is removed...I cant remember with mine...I thought some one here who just had surgery might know.

I'm just so upset...
Thanks for your help

If it started in his stomach you would think they would have seen something last year. You just never know.  I'm so sorry, Paulie.

--gina

It would be normal procedure that anything removed from the body, such as the part of the stomach that was removed, would be sent to Pathology and checked for any sign of disease. Assuming that this was done (of course I don't really know this), that would mean the cancer was, at that time, either not present at all or so small it was only in the sleeve part of the stomach. 
     This would seem to me that if he now has advanced stomach cancer that has spread to other organs, that it was almost certainly present just 1 year ago as well, unless it is an unusually aggressive form of cancer, OR unless it's a cancer that really started someplace else in his body and spread to, among other organs, his stomach. 
     Bottom line, we're missing something in this story (happens on-line all the time). Either the pathology wasn't done as it should have been, or they missed something, or he had a very small but aggressive stomach cancer, or it isn't really stomach cancer...you get the idea. 
     I am so very sorry your friend is going through all this, and wish I had better answers for you.

Larra
    

Yes this is all true..he is having biopsies on other organs now there trying to figure things out ....its just so upsetting...thanks for your help

no indication of a biopsy being done on my  removed stomach, it was not removed for disease or symptom so a biopsy was not indicated.  that was done during the edo and pyloric exam pre op.

 
That's awful news.  I'm so sorry to hear!  

What Larra says makes a lot of sense.

My SIl recently passed away from gastric cancer; it was very aggressive, but hadn't been seen as he thought it was just an ulcer. An EDG caught it, but by that time the lymph system was full of it and the cancer had spread throughout his body. There isn't a lot that can be done, even if it is caught early.

I'm so sorry to hear of your friend's illness.