We're moving ahead with cytoreductive surgery anyway. CRS is exactly what it sounds like: cutting the cancer out. Normally you do that when the scans light up and tell you where to go. Mine don't. So how does the surgery find what the imaging can't?
First guess: cameras. Laparoscopy, a few ports, a screen. More likely they open me up — both sides of the curtain.
Then I got curious. Is there a trick to it? Some special light, like a black light, and goggles that make the tumors glow?
Short answer: no. Mostly it's eyes and hands.
Visual inspection
Implants tend to show up as white, firm nodules — plaques, or a puckering on otherwise smooth peritoneum. The surgeon works every surface: diaphragm, liver capsule, paracolic gutters, small bowel and mesentery, the pelvis and pouch of Douglas, the omentum.Palpation
Running the bowel and mesentery through the fingers, inch by inch, catches the deposits too small or too flat to see. This is the whole reason CRS is open and not keyhole — tactile feedback finds disease that imaging and laparoscopy miss.Which is to say: they will literally be fondling my organs to find the cancer.