Hi Ed C.- Your trip to MD Anderson should be helpful to your wife. MDA is one of the top Cancer facilities in the world and has a Proton facility and Protons are particularly effective in treating head and neck Cancers if Radiation is required. In fact, if one studies the history of Proton Therapy, the initial medical use was intended to treat just such tumors (particularly in children), which lay immediately adjacent to many small, highly sensitive and vital organs, that sit at very shallow depths within the body.
The low volume of such malignancies could not, in themselves, justify the costs of such facilities. Prostate Cancer (PCa) incidence being extremely high, in comparison, it potentially provided a pragmatic economic solution. Whether such precision is required, or even advantageous, in treating a largely multi-focal disease residing in a substantially larger target, is still highly debated from a MEDICAL standpoint to this day. There is NO doubt, however, that from a purely ECONOMIC standpoint, it has provided a volume of financial income without which, the present expansion of new facilities would not likely have found support. MDA's surgical abilities are also first class, if that procedure would be the preferred treatment.
I wish both you and your wife the benefits of superior treatment for your present medical challenges and, in my opinion you have chosen wisely in turning to MDA for your Wife's newly identified tumor. I join you in hoping and praying that it is benign, but barring this, I believe you have chosen to avail yourself of excellent staff and facilities to treat any other diagnosis. Good luck! -
[email protected] (aka) az4peaks
Post Edited (az4peaks) : 5/29/2011 3:23:18 PM (GMT-6)