Supporting Member (50+ posts) Joined: Feb 2013 Posts: 78 | I was given the option between surgery with at a minimum radiation (possibly with chemo) and concurrent chemo and radiation.
I saw 4 different cancer centers before deciding on my treatment and cancer center. A general thought that was communicated to me was that having 2 modalities of treatment was superior to 3 modalities with respect to long term effects and complications. If the doctors could keep it to 2, that would be an ideal situation.
I ended up going with chemoradiation as the surgeon ordered a PET and judged that he may have issues with clean margins on the primary and based on that they thought there was a good chance I would still need chemo and radiation. If the imaging and presentation had indicated a low chance of adverse features and bad margins than I may have ended up on the surgery + radiation route.
I was also told that the long term effects and complications of radiation + chemo were worse than surgery + radiation.
It sounds like the surgery went well and there were no adverse features, so I would think that radiation only is a candidate for treatment (which is supported by the NCCN Head and neck cancer guidelines).
Andrew age 25
early 10/12 - enlarged lymph node area 01/13 SCC of L tonsil, L BOT, 2 L lymph nodes stage IVa, T2N2bM0, HPV+
2/13 2 doses cisplatin big bag, 2 doses weekly cisplatin + 35x IMRT 4/13 TX finished 7/13 PET/CT - NED!
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