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Meet others living with Head & Neck Cancer: Introduce yourself
Head & Neck Cancer | Last Active: Jul 29 9:00pm | Replies (721)Comment receiving replies
Thanks, Woodsy1:
So I've had that test just last week and it came back positive as expected. It was presented to me as a post- treatment tool. In other words it should be negative after the Radiation and Cisplatin to prove they got it all. Thereafter, they would repeat NavDx periodically to catch anything that might return and take care of it quickly.
It was not presented as a way to minimize treatments. Perhaps they have this in their back pocket and didn't tell me to prevent me from getting excited. (under promise and overachieve?)
One thing from your post does confuse me. The 24 treatments at 48gy sounds really low compared to what sounds low... as my docs were talking intensity modulated between 75gy at tumor and 10 - 30gy at various places around my neck. Could you elaborate on that?
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@simplygrand
Sure, had 2gy per IMRT radiation treatment X 24 . It was proposed that I get 35 treatments for 70gy.
The NavDx could be used to monitor progress with treatments but
there seems to be a reluctance to try and cut people loose early. Why ? Your guess is as good as mine but the back pocket thing comes to mind unfortunately.
I had trouble with the 40 cesplatin doseage and after 2 of them I took 2 weeks off from that and came back for 2 half doses which was more tolerable.
As for the radiation , I continued treatments until swallowing became difficult and chose to stop treatments completely and take the test.
A feeding tube was not in the cards for me. I had read numerous trials about this cancer and saw good curative results with less treatments than the current standard of care protocol. Hope this helps.