This is regarding the oral cancer diagnosed to my Uncle. I am posting for him.

He had his first surgery done last April (2014) followed by radiations for 3 months (total of 59 gy)... it re-occurred in Jan 2015 and they did "cyber knife" with 20 gy of radiations for 3 weeks... March 2015 tests were negative.. however, it re-occurred again in May now... We want to get it operated - but doctor says that it is not a good idea because too much of radiation has been given and it will not heal now... they think that only chemo is the only way.... however we feel that doctors are not confident either ways in what they are saying.

BTW - these are Indian doctors and one of the US family friend oncologist doctor says that surgery can be done... if anyone have had any such experience would be good if you can help reply.. I will really appreciate.

I'm sorry to hear about your uncle's battles with cancer. We are not doctors so can not give any specifics for your uncle. What is generally recommended in complicated cases like this is to seek second/third opinions.

North America recognizes a handful of hospitals for specializing in cancer treatment. Find similarly recognized cancer specialists facilities where you can obtain services.

Radiation treatment does scar tissue and no longer behaves like normal tissue. It seems reasonable that surgery on scarred tissue and response from surgery will be different.

Oncologists are not surgeons and even if your family friend doctor has all the medical records, it does not qualify an oncologist to make surgical decisions.

A third recurrence in such a short time necessitates immediate attention as this cancer is aggressive. Seek alternative opinions to the maximum degree you can afford.

Welcome to OCF! Im ery sorry your uncle is going thru this yet again. Its bad enough having it once, let alone 2 or 3 times.

After having radiation twice I would doubt that would be an option again so soon. Chemo alone is used for pallitvie care. It could shrink the tumor but most likely not eliminate it completely. This leaves surgery as the only curative option. Yes, healing could be an issue when being done on previously radiated areas. Even if its close to where the other tumors were, its still in the scatter radiation zone. Please understand, here at OCF we are fellow patients and caregivers without medical backgrounds. We do not have years of medical education, practice or the patients chart (doubtful we could read it). He has recently had alot of radiation to that area so that area would probably be difficult to heal. That could lead him down the path of it being necessary to do hyperbaric oxygen treatments to heal the area. Way too many variables for us to try making guesses.

My suggestion is to go for other opinions at the best cancer facilitates available as quickly as possible. The longer he waits for something to be done the more the cancer can grow, possibly spread to other areas.

Best wishes with everything!!!

Surgery is his only option. Chemo will NOT cure him. Push for surgery. Pump up his protein it helps with healing. Hugs.