Anytime a loved one, especially a senior, and especially a cancer survivor, is admitted to the hospital for a fever and possible infection, it causes concern. Once hearing about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s recent hospitalization, people may jump to the worst-case-scenario, but an expert tells SurvivorNet that infections are typically treatable.
“People should not immediately jump to the conclusion that [Ruth Bader Ginsberg] has active cancer because she has a bile duct stent in place,” Dr. Allyson Ocean, a medical oncologist at Weill Cornell Medical Center, says to SurvivorNet about the Supreme Court Justice and four-time cancer survivor’s recent hospitalization.
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How Do Bile Duct Stents Cause Infection?
A bile duct stent is typically a plastic object placed into the bile and pancreatic duct in order to keep the bile duct passage open so the bile can freely flow into the intestines in order to break down food and help bowel movements. Dr. Ocean is quick to point out that the need for a bile duct stent is not always linked to cancer, and it can be given to people who need to clear their bile duct passage regardless of a diagnosis or not.
“If someone does have a bile duct stent in place, because it’s a foreign body, whenever there’s something that’s a foreign body in an organ bacteria can collect around it and that can lead to an infection,” Dr. Ocean says. “Bacteria likes to cling onto foreign objects that are within our bodies. This holds true for any kind of stent whether’s it’s in the heart, kidneys, ureter, pancreatic duct or bile duct. Having a plastic foreign body in someone puts them at risk of infection.”
Since stents can lead to infection, it’s important that they are replaced or cleaned out periodically. Symptoms pointing to a possible stent infection include fever, jaundice (yellowing of the skin), and diarrhea. To fight an infection, patients will receive antibiotics immediately.
Caring For The Elderly During COVID-19
In the case of Justice Ginsburg, who underwent three weeks of radiation while battling pancreatic cancer in 2019, Dr. Ocean says that those who recently went through cancer treatment such as chemotherapy or radiation are at higher risk of infection due to their immune cells and blood cells being lowered from treatment which weakens their immune system. Additionally, amid the COVID-19 outbreak, older generations and immunocompromised individuals are at especially high risk of contracting the virus.
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That being the case, extra precautions are critical in making sure patients’ and staff’s health and safety are not compromised which include social distancing, masks, hand washing, and reporting possible exposures to the virus.
“They have to be really smart about who they interact with, including family and grandchildren,” Dr. Ocean says. “A lot of children are asymptotic carriers and not a lot of kids are getting tested so we don’t know if they’re the ones who are passing the virus to their grandparents. I always tell my patients to be very careful around family gatherings.”
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