Gary

My understanding was that my RO programmed the IMRT to give my thyroid as little radiation as possible, but that he could not avoid "collateral damage" to the thyroid entirely and still hit my tumor hard enough due its location and size.
However, it was a different story with the Cyberknife treatment 18 months later as that was precise enough to actually avoid my thyroid entirely. The cyberknife pictures were awesome, almost psychedelic with these amazingly thin blue beams - and the computer monitored it real time to adjust them on the fly. I had asked if we could do Cyberknife the first time around and my RO had indicated that the downside of it's pinpoint accuracy was that it was impractical for a tumor as big as mine had grown, hence the IMRT. Since we caught the recurrence early, cyberknife was not only an option, but according to him, the only one as the rest of my face, throat, neck and shoulders could not handle any more IMRT radiation.
Charm