Hi, Mamacita, thank you for your response. Actually, I am being treated at a large teaching hospital ~ the University of PA (HUP). My surgeon is the Director of the Dept of Otorhinolaryngology: Head and Neck Surgery. Patients come to him for second opinions.

My "beef" is with the pathologist. I Googled her and found out that her specialty is thyroid cancer. Most of the papers she has published deal with the thyroid. Her report was detailed to the "nth" degree on every other aspect dealing with margins (which were all clean) and she stated unequivocally that "no definitive perineural invasion" could be identified. That is why I am bothered by her statement that areas are only "suspicious for lymphovascular invasion." If there is some factor that would be consistent with lymphovascular invasion, seems to me she would have identified what that factor was, given her attention to detail in all other areas. Her vagueness in this area makes me wonder if it might possibly just be a "CYA" comment.

The Board at HUP meets every week to discuss every case. From what I was made to understand, there are surgeons, oncologists, radiologists, pathologists, etc. who meet to discuss each case. They are not just a "single tumor board."

As I gave my permission prior to surgery to use my tissues in a research study, I am pretty confident that HUP will be retaining all my tissue specimens.

I was hoping this forum would be helpful to me, but since it seems that there are no members with my issue, I guess I'm just on my own and will have to made a decision based on my "gut feeling" as things unfold in the future.