The WSJ reports that Steve Jobs had a liver transplant two months ago in Tennessee. He is expected to still return to work later this month, even if only at a part time schedule.
From there, the article goes on to speculate loosely, ever so loosely, that Jobs’ cancer had spread to his liver.
William Hawkins, a doctor specializing in pancreatic and gastrointestinal surgery at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., said that the type of slow-growing pancreatic tumor Mr. Jobs had will commonly metastasize in another organ during a patient’s lifetime, and that the organ is usually the liver. “All total, 75% of patients are going to have the disease spread over the course of their life,” said Dr. Hawkins, who has not treated Mr. Jobs.
Getting a liver transplant to treat a metastasized neuroendocrine tumor is controversial because livers are scarce and the surgery’s efficacy as a cure hasn’t been proved, Dr. Hawkins added. He said that patients whose tumors have metastasized can live for as many as 10 years without any treatment so it is hard to determine how successful a transplant has been in curing the disease.
But those are far from facts. All we know is that the WSJ is saying Jobs got a transplant. Regardless, when Steve gets back to work, I think we should all welcome him back. [WSJ, via Peter K]
