What is the treatment for tumor growing between bile ducts?
Patient: My father who just turned 90 this month was recently diagnosed with a tumor that is growing between the two bile ducts that lead into the liver.  This was detected thru bloodwork and in the past two weeks he has had two seperate scopes, one of which involved the placing of a temporary stint into one of the ducts. The doctor who performed this discovered during the scope that the tumor was actually larger and was indeed blocking the other duct too. He did not have the dual stint that he needed so he just treated both blockages with temporary stints.  We returned with my father yesterday to this same doctor who is a general surgeon. He advised to have the permanant dual stint placed as soon as possible but also added that there are risks involved. Namely not being able to place the left side stint due to the difficulty with manuvering to that side.       My question in all of this is: should my father have this situation treated by this general surgeon (who is almost 70 years old) or should he be treated by a gastro specialist???? Doctor: Greetings. I appreciate your concern for your father. Your father is suffering from the cancer of the bile ducts which is an aggresive cancer. As he is very old, i think biliary stenting should be done to relieve the jaundice followed by some form of oral chemotherapy if he able to tolerate that.However if he is in a good health and the cancer is localised then upfront surgery is the option. Stenting will be done by gastroenterologist and surgery by a surgeon. Hope you now understand well and can chose depending upon the reports and health status of your father, whether to go for surgery or stenting first.