I have tried to check on the oncoradiologist that you are seeing tomorrow - Timothy Chan. I have not found much, but what I have found is good. He is an MD-PhD, which
bodes well for being able to communicate with him as a scientist. In
my experience, the MD-PhD students are by far the smartest ones among
the medical students. Also, he is involved in research. Most of his
published work is in genetics/molecular approaches, so he might be
a good source of advice on eventual clinical trials. His specialty
as a radiation oncologist is precisely in the area of anaplastic
astrocytomas (grade III astrocytomas). He was trained at
Johns Hopkins (medical school, residency, fellowship), which is one
of the few top cancer centers in the USA, as Sloan-Kettering is.
Ask the doctor as much as possible about the procedure. Ask him to tell
him in detail what will be done and what he expects to learn from it.
Also ask him about what could go wrong, and about recovery from it even
if all goes right.
It seems to me that an important question is that of what is it that
the proposed treatment will achieve: control the rate of growth,
an actual reduction in size? Will it alleviate any symptoms, or
delay the onset of new ones? Is it the goal to make the tumor
operable?
There are side effects associated with
radiation/chemotherapy, so it seems to me that it is important to
understand why the treatments are being pursued. It is not the
doctors that will have to endure the discomforts, so make sure
that there is a good reason for going through with it.
Love - Sara
