Utah Woman Has Stomach Removed After Learning Of High Cancer Risk From Genetic Testing
Nov 14, 2019, 8:55 PM | Updated: 9:04 pm
SANDY, Utah — When Sandy resident Karen Piotrowski learned she had a high risk of getting cancer, she had a choice to make — she could continue life as normal and hope for the best, or she could take a drastic step and choose to have preventative surgery and remove her stomach.
“We call it an exclusive club because there’s so few people in the world that have this,” said Karen Piotrowski, who decided to have the preventative surgery. “The way to get into this exclusive club is to have your stomach removed, which is a crazy concept,” she said.
Genetic testing had revealed she has a rare genetic mutation that gave her a higher chance of getting stomach cancer. Piotrowski wanted to know her risk because her mother passed away from cancer.
“You’re just constantly worried, ‘Oh, I have a stomachache, is that cancer?'” she said. But it’s not just Piotrowski who had the genetic mutation — her sister, Susan Carroll, also had it.
“Okay, we’re gonna jump off the diving board together, okay one-two-three go,” said Carroll, who lives in Michigan, via Skype.
They decided to have the surgeries together last January.
Sisters Susan Carroll, left, and Karen Piotrowski, right, had their stomachs removed preventatively after learning they were at high risk for stomach cancer.
“We went out for pizza and I had my last glass of wine — that’s what I wanted for last meal and it was awesome,” Piotrowski said.
Piotrowski and Carroll had gastrectomies at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland in early 2019.
Surgeons removed their stomachs and connected their esophagi directly to their small intestines.
“Having the stomach removed is still the only definitive way that we know to prevent gastric cancer in people who might be at increased risk,” said Wendy Kohlmann, a genetic counselor at the Huntsman Cancer Institute.
Kohlmann said stomach cancer isn’t detectable until the late stages and for some, the reassurance was worth the life change.
“That, unfortunately, is just a cancer where we don’t have alternative strategies for trying to catch that cancer at an early stage,” she said. “For some people, this opportunity to eliminate the risk for gastric cancer provides a lot of reassurance.”
Piotrowski and her sister started eating soft foods after the surgery until their systems adjusted.
They can eat almost anything nine months later and after some adjustments in their diets, their small intestines do the work their stomachs did before.
“I eat lots of small meals and take things on the go,” Piotrowski said. “It’s very important for me to chew things completely in order to digest them, but I’m feeling more and more normal all the time.”
“I feel surprisingly normal,” Carroll said. “Anybody looking at me, no one would know I don’t have a stomach.”
As for regrets? Piotrowski said she has none and that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
“I’ve gotten the reassurance that I’m going to be around here for my children, and I’ve got a lot of life to live,” she said.
The sisters said post-surgery biopsies later revealed they had Stage 1 stomach cancer, reassuring them that they had made the right choice.
