Radiation Therapy and pathology

To ensure you get the best, most high quality radiation therapy one has to do a little homework.

1) Insist your radiation oncologist looks at your pathology slides personally.  Just reading the report (which is what happens most of the time) may not be good enough (unless you are being treated at a very high quality institution.

There is often valuable information (not in the report) and looking at the slides personally can sometimes change the radiation treatment.  For instance, the margin status (or nearness of the cancer cells to normal tissue) can be better appreciated by looking.  Sometimes the report only comments on the closest positive margin--when there may have been several close margins.  This can impact therapy.

See what your doctor says when you ask if he or she has seen the slides (or spoken to the pathologist)!