After foods combine with stomach acid, they descend into the duodenum where they mix with bile from the gallbladder and digestive fluid from the pancreas.

Patients with duodenal cancer may experience abdominal pain, weight loss, nausea, vomiting, and chronic gastrointestinal bleeding.

Resection is sometimes a part of a treatment plan,[2] but duodenal cancer is difficult to remove surgically because of the area that it resides in—there are many blood vessels supplying the lower body.

In this procedure, the duodenum, a portion of the Pancreas (the head), and the gall bladder are usually removed, the small intestine is brought up to the Pylorus (the valve at the bottom of the stomach) and the liver and pancreatic digestive enzymes and bile are connected to the small intestine below the pylorus.

The removal of part of the Pancreas often requires taking pancreatic enzyme supplements to aid digestion.