Hi Danny,

I wish you luck in your decision. My daughter is facing a similar decision. Not a matter of whether or not to participate in a clinical trial, but whether or not to undergo chemo. She had surgery for removal of her stage 3/4 base of tongue tumor and neck dissection in Sept. and completed RAD a week ago. Now she has to decide about the chemo.

I'm sure most of you are aware that this is a very controversial issue. Most of the studies have failed to show that adding chemo increases the survival rate. But it also hasn't been proven that it doesn't help. Bottom line - no one knows if it helps or not.

What they do know is that there is possible risk of kidney damage, nerve damage, hearing loss, more mouth sores and the chemo may actually precipitate a recurrence!?!

If she doesn't do the chemo and has a recurrence, she will always feel it is her fault for not doing all she could to fight it. But she could have complications from the chemo that would be almost as bad. I've heard the old saw "the cure is worse than the disease". Now I really know what it means! How does one determine when the potential risk outweighs the possibly minimal benefit? confused

I can't even begin to imagine being in Heather's shoes right now. I have been a huge advocate of researching everything possible during her battle with cancer and I have given her lots of advice based on that research. But none of my research has given me an answer to this dilemma. I am at a complete loss. frown
Thanks for listening.

Rosemary

Was primary caregiver to my daughter Heather who had stage IV base of tongue SCC w/ primary recurrence. Original diagnosis August 21st, 2002. Primary recurrence March 18th, 2003. Died October 6th, 2003.