After 10 hours of commuting and cancer center consultation, my mind is exhausted so I'm looking for help for this distinction.

My mother had her radiation consultation yesterday. After 5 doctors, we've finally found one who is willing to talk and wants to be as aggressive as possible. He made a comment that I don't understand. He said that since my mother has cervical lymph node involvement, IMRT would miss too much of the cancer and he feels standard radiation would be better. I have read many articles on the advantages of IMRT for advanced head and neck cancers so his statement puzzles me. Can anyone explain this to me?

As an aside, I asked about amifostine. He is against it because he feels the increased benefit is only about 1% of patients but more importantly he is afraid it protects too much of the tumor to the detriment of killing all of the cancer cells. In the scheme of things, I think this is the least of my mother's worries so I'm not going to press the isssue.

Thanks for any feedback.

Cynthia