David, This case is different from yours, though. They knew from your physical exam and CT scans that you were stage IV and so would have radiation and chemo no matter what. She has said she has no signs of cancer in the nodes based on a physcial exam and it sounds like the doctor will be using the CT scans, and then the results from the neck dissections as well to determine if that is really true when they are looked at more directly. If it is, they won't need to do radiation and chemo most likely. That's why the neck dissection. if the neck dissection is not done, there's a 30% chance they could be wrong about the nodes being cancer free, and she would be undertreated and more vulnerable to a recurrence.IOW, In this case, the doc needs the information from the neck dissection to decide whether she should have raidaiton and chemo. That wasn't true in your case.

Nelie