Jan,
IMHO, if I had the opportunity to go the Stanford for cancer treatment, I would have as they are one of the best in Northern California. As it was, we drove 60 miles a day for radiation treatment at UCSF, also one of the top regional cancer treatment centers (ranked 7th in US). It's about the standard of care you will receive, and the expertise of the doctors. Would you trust your life to anything less?Teaching/research hospitals tend to have well experienced doctors/professors who basically develop the treatment protocols that all the others follow and as such, will have the latest, most successful treatment regimes. They also tend to be very proud of their positive outcome statistics.

Brian,
The protocol I went through was radiation and chemo simultaneously. I didn't have surgery.

Gary, your point is well taken, and don't think we didn't labor over our decision not to go to Stanford...in the end we felt we were getting an almost identical regime with a doctor we actually like and that is less than a mile from our home. Our doctor is following a plan used by a Dr. for this type of cancer at Harvard Medical and we feel comfortable with both the plan and our chemo doc...he is known for being aggressive in his treatments, but he is also extremely user-friendly and human in his approach.
In other news, my husband's surgery to insert the G-tube has not been a complete success. He does not seem to be moving things though, and after a couple of xrays of the abdomen, the surgeon believes he has a partial intestinal blockage that appears to be "barrium from a previous medical test"--we are seeing the surgeon in an hour...wish us luck.

jan b

An update on my situation: Around the end of February, I discovered a lump on the right side of my neck. The long and short of it is, I was diagnosed with cancer of the right tonsil that had spread to the neck lymph nodes. The treatment plan was to have two or three cycles (3 weeks each) of pre-operative chemotherapy (carboplatin and taxol) followed by surgery to remove the tumor on the tonsil and the affected neck lymph nodes. The treatment program then calls for a course of chemoradiation. I have recently completed my second cycle of the pre-operative chemotherapy. There has been significant shrinkage of the neck lymph nodes. The otolaryngology surgeon indicated that there was also major shrinkage of the tonsil tumor. Mentally I was prepared to get on with the surgery. I was surprised and disappointed when the surgeon ordered a third cycle of chemotherapy. I had a trip planned to Boston, so I decided to seek a second opinion while there. The doctors (surgeon and medical oncologist) that I consulted with independent of one another were not impressed with my treatment program. They would recommend an initial course of chemoradiation, followed by salvage surgery to remove the affected neck lymph nodes and the tonsil tumor if necessary. However, the hoped for result would be that the chemoradiation would eliminate the tonsil tumor entirely. The message from both the surgeon and the medical oncologists was that throat surgery should be avoided if at all possible. I will be meeting with or talking to my

My first consultation involved fairly radical surgery for the removal of all tissues of my right tonsil and ALSO the surrounding muscle mass and tissues as these SCC's frequently invade those tissues. A radical neck was on the menu for BOTH sides as I had a bilateral mets to the cervical nodes. Even though my tongue was not involved, they suspected that it too might contain malignant cells... another bit of cutting. I didn't like the sound of any of this, and that

Tom:

Welcome to OCF. My fiance Dave had his tonsillar surgery done here at Mass Eye & Ear followed by radiation at Mass General. We sought information about the treatment protocal at Dana Farber which was drastically different than the one at MEEI which Dave ultimately chose to follow. I am curious where you sought your additional opinion and would be happy to be of help if needed.

Kim

Kim,
The second opinion I received was at Mass Eye & Ear. Both doctors saw me on very short notice and both spent a considerable amount of time with my wife and me. The medical oncologist made reference to Dana Farber