I'm also considered inoperable due to blood vessel involvement. To be honest, I'm OK with that. And I've had two cancer surgeries (not pancan) previously, plus a ridiculous number of other surgeries over the years including two open-heart surgeries, so I'm not opposed to surgery per se. The Whipple is a very arduous procedure, as others on this board have described, and it doesn't always remove all the cancer. Pancreatic cancer is notoriously virulent, and it doesn't take many cells to cause a recurrence by secretly planting themselves somewhere undetected and then growing willy-nilly. I appreciate your frustration, though, and I hope your husband responds well to chemo!

@bceg1969 and @ncteacher ,

Have either of you consulted with or done research into Dr. Christopher Wolfgang at NY Langone (formerly of Johns Hopkins)?

He is supposedly one of the best when it comes to surgery with complicated vein/artery involvement.

(I qualify that with some understanding that it pertains to "locally advanced" tumors, not those with distant metastases.)

Four highly experienced Whipple surgeons with vascular surgery skills that take on complex vascular involvement are Mark Truty of Mayo Clinic, Rochester; Douglas Evans of Medical College of Wisconsin/Froedert Hospital in Milwaukee; John Chabot of the Pancreas Center of Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and Christopher Wolfgang of NYU-Langone Medical Center- both in NYC.