Operating On "Inoperable" Cancer

(CBS)  "I feel like I'm alive," said 63-year-old Brooke Zepp.

That's something she didn't think she'd be able to say nine months ago. Zepp was diagnosed with a rare and fatal cancerous tumor. It was entangled in arteries and buried so deep in her abdomen it was considered inoperable, CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella reports.

Dr. Tomoaki Kato, a transplant surgeon at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center, saw it differently.

"If you try to remove the tumor in the usual way, it's going to cause damage to the organs that are supplied by all these arteries," Kato said. "So we just took everything out of the body."

During a groundbreaking 15-hour surgery, Dr. Kato's team opened Zepp's abdomen like the hood of a car and took out the entire engine: her stomach, pancreas, spleen, liver and large and small intestines.

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Zepp and Kato spoke with co-anchor Harry Smith on The Early Show Tuesday. "I feel like it's all gone!" Zepp declared triumphantly, referring to the cancer. "I feel almost normal. Not quite. But almost," she also said. Kato noted that he was four-to-five hours into the surgery -- about a-third of its eventual total length -- before he was even sure it could be done. To see the interview,

click here

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The organs were chilled while surgeons detangled the two-inch tumor from Zepp's aorta, the main blood-supply to those organs - and two other arteries.

Once the tumor was out, the organs, connected to new Gortex blood vessels, went back in.

"I'm shocked looking at it," Kato said. "While we were watching she was like, 'oh my goodness.'"

Now three weeks since the surgery, Zepp is looking at herself from the outside in - grateful that her gamble seems to have paid off.

"I thought it would be better to take a chance on living than on dying soon," she said.

Zepp also said she want to prove to the world that inoperable cancers can be operated on. Her cancer is now gone, and she's heading home.

[twintower6]

Someday "MODERN" medicine won''''t require the use of a butcher''''s knife...It''s all still quack medicine - the industry wants patients, not cures.

[godofredo29]

FYI: Mesothelioma is not form of lung cancer.

[nikegirl522]

I am also writing about my Dad who has a leiomyosarcoma of the prostate, it is non-resectable also. It is stage 4, 15 cm. I don''t know if I can put my email in this column, but would like to contact abby skippy to talk if interested. We are praying for a miracle after many chemotherapy did not have much of a help for him. Please respond if you are interested in contact. thank you and God Bless!

[ademarz37]

While this is an amazing surgical feat, unfortunately the report does not even indicate which type of cancer the patient had. It sounds like a sarcoma from the interview in which the patient indicated that it was important to get clean surgical margins. What needs to be said is that whether it is a sarcoma or a stomach carcinoma, this surgery is likely not to be curative. While I would probably try the same thing if I was the patient, there should not be too much in the way of expectations by other patients for a cure. In medicine what needs to be done are controlled clinical trials to determine if treatments are effective. Obviously with this case of 1 patient we have no real information here.

[twintower6]

Someday "MODERN" medicine won''''t require the use of a butcher''''s knife...It''''s all still quack medicine - the industry wants patients, not cures.

[twintower6]

Someday "MODERN" medicine won''t require the use of a butcher''s knife...It''s all still quack medicine - the industry wants patients and not cures.

[abbyskippy]

Wonderfull!! I am in the same situation. I have an inoperable large tumor. I''m 43 yrs old with leiomoyosarcoma.
No one will help me! I wish Dr. Kato could help me!

[lochlan-2009]

butterfly553 - Sorry, didn''t see you wrote pretty much the same thought I had.

[lochlan-2009]

A doctor thinking outside the box. What a concept. If we could just teach the rest of them to have a little more abstract thought (using common sense, of course), rather then the typical tape recorder doctor.

What do they call a medical student who graduates at the bottom of his class?

Doctor.

[abbyskippy]

I am 43 yrs old and with the Lord''s help have been fighting Leiomyosarcoma for 8 years. Now I can''t find anyone to help me. I have a large tumor that protrudes from my back and twists thru my intestines, the only thing that will save me is surgery. No one will do it. I wish I could be evaluated by Dr. Kato!!!