Your primary physician or oncologist will present your case (anonymously) so that each physician there has the same information your doctor has in making his or her decision.
In many larger hospitals there are specialty Tumor Boards that review cases in one particular field—breast cancer, urologic cancer, gynecologic cancers or head and neck cancers, for example.
When it comes to recommending treatment, then, your doctor has had the benefit of input and ideas from a wide range of professionals.
Personal Factors: Benefits and Risks Which treatment is finally recommended will also depend on such personal factors as your age, other medical problems (which might make surgery risky) and especially the possibility of significant side effects with one or another treatment.
Age comes into the decision because the patient who is forty years old may be able to tolerate the aggressive chemotherapy drugs that bring about a substantial rate of remission . The same drugs given to an eighty-year-old could be risky. At that age the kidneys don't function as well as they do earlier in life and the risk of therapy could outweigh the potential benefit. But each case has to be decided on its own merits.
Both you and your doctor have to consider the relative advantages and disadvantages of each therapy. You have to weigh the chances of achieving remission or cure with the risks and side effects of treatment. You and your family are partners with your physician in this decision making process.
