Hi Denise,

The most important aspect to the entire battle is trusting your medical team. You are at the point where you can obtain alternative opinions to validate your trust or possibly seek alternative options.

Once you place your trust in your team you need to weigh the options that are presented and especially consider the recommended approach. The doctors and teams have many years of experience and training and know best what treatment plan works best for your specific condition.

None of us here have any idea of the specifics of your case so can not offer any suggestion of what treatments are best for you. There are a couple common philosophies as you allude to yourself; wanting to be aggressive the first time around with the thought it offers the highest chance of cure and the lowest chance of recurrence.

The other approach is to try a less aggressive treatment plan to still cure the disease, that is remove all known cancer cells, and improve quality of life with fewer short and long term side effects. Only you can decide what is best for you.

Personally, I had 3 rounds of chemo before getting 35 treatments of radiation and 7 rounds of chemo, no surgery. It was very tough but I felt at the time and still do, that in my case I was fit and able to endure the extreme treatments. I wanted it DEAD and GONE and today never have a moment's thought that anything else might have given me a better outcome.

The only thing I have learned since treatment that might have influenced my decision is the long term side effects of radiation. Had I factored in all the potential issues with them, I might have asked if radiation was essential. In my case, the subject never came up across all the professionals including tumor board so based on my case, it was a "no brainer" I needed to do it.

The logic behind the lymph nodes is oral cancer generally travels via the lymph nodes. So by checking how many and how far they find cancer, they decide where they think it is and then decide the treatment plan to cure or treat it.

Cancer can travel to other places like the lungs so it is possible for cancer cells to get lose and go other places. There is no perfect calculation so the experience of the team is so vital.

Good luck
Don