Even a benign tumor in the wrong places could make things bad. One in your pancreas could maybe damage insulin production.
Fair enough, but that possibility has to be weighed against the risks of surgery and a stint in the hospital.
I know people who’ve done elective surgeries (e.g., knee-replacement, benign polyp removal in colon etc.)... and ended up leaving the hospital in a body bag.
I am familiar with surgery in and around the pancreas. My wife had pancreatic cancer and she had multiple abdominal surgeries over the past six years.
Getting ANYTHING out of the pancreas is not an easy surgery. It is located in a weird place and it is at the “superhighway” of blood systems and the digestive system.
I guess if you are going in for a benign tumor—knowing you are not going to do the massive reconstruction they do with a Whipple—it is easier than what PC patients go through.
These scans are interesting. I would imagine the biggest issue is the number of false results—or finding small benign things that have been inside you forever. It can be disconcerting.
I had a brain X Ray that showed a colloid cyst. Those can be fatal. But, it is suggested they are the remnants of tissue captured in the womb. So here I was at 44 years old getting worked up over something that had literally been in my head since conception. Follow up scans over the past 20 years show its actually shrinking.
But...at least I know it’s there. I call it my “Brain Pea” in my pea brain.