Read Time: 2 Minute
Takeaways:
- Cancer research and technology have made complex surgeries, including liver surgery, significantly safer than in the past.
- Huntsman Cancer Institute is committed to continually improving care through research, experience, and education.
Impact: At Huntsman Cancer Institute, decades of research and innovation are giving patients more effective treatment options today and real hope for what’s possible tomorrow.
Dear Patients, Families, and Caregivers,
Thank you for the trust you place in me and in the care teams at Huntsman Cancer Institute. We strive for the very best outcomes we can possibly achieve, and we don’t take that trust lightly. In the operating room and in clinic, we do our best to treat every person as we would our own family.
As a hepatopancreatobiliary surgeon, I operate on complex liver, pancreas, and biliary cancers. These are challenging diseases, but advances in surgical technology, techniques, imaging, and more, give me confidence in where we are and hope for where we’re headed.
Liver surgery today, for example, is safer, more effective, and more precise than at any point in history. We now routinely perform operations that would have been unthinkable just a few decades ago.
Not long ago, liver surgery carried a mortality risk as high as 20–25%. Now, it’s less than 1%.
Cancer research and technological advances over the last couple of decades have made this possible. Intraoperative ultrasound has enabled us to anticipate what we'll encounter inside the liver as we operate, and new stapling technologies allow us to divide and staple off tissue and blood vessels quickly and securely.
Chemotherapy has advanced as well. New drugs developed in just the last decade have made an extraordinary difference for many patients. Other advances include novel routes to deliver radiation directly into the liver and most recently, major advances in liver transplant.
As we look ahead, I am encouraged by the pace of discovery. But we’re never satisfied with our results; we are always thinking about how we can improve the care of our patients.
We continually refine how we select patients, how we operate, and how we combine treatments. We are also educating the new generation of doctors and scientists so this progress continues forward with tempo. That commitment to improvement, informed by research and experience, is what allows us to offer patients the safest and most effective care possible.
People facing cancer come to us because they want expertise and hope. I can say with confidence that today, both are stronger than ever.
With hope,
T. Clark Gamblin, MD, MS, MBA, FACS
Inaugural Chief, Division of Surgical Oncology
Our doctors and researchers are sharing hope with patients and their loved ones. Read more Letters of Hope.