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Below, week by week, is what OnCo's record of Salivary gland cancers says about the first two months: the order is typical, the timing is yours to ask about. Salivary gland cancers are a family of over 20 rare cancers, each with its own behaviour and often its own gene fusion. Surgery and radiation treat most; drug therapy is now chosen by the specific subtype, from anti-HER2 or anti-androgen drugs to NTRK inhibitors. Sections appear only where the record has something to say. Orientation, not medical advice.
Staging tests establish exactly what and where the cancer is. Everything else follows from the answers.
Ask which of these were tested and what the results were; see the report reader for what each value means.
These specialties appear in the standard of care for this cancer. In most centres they meet weekly as a tumour board to agree each plan; you can ask when yours was discussed and what was decided.
A second opinion from a centre that treats many similar cases is normal, not rude; the standard of care tells you what to compare it against.
Each row is a setting from the standard of care, in the order it usually arises. Not all will apply to you; your stage and biomarkers decide which do. The guideline grade, where recorded, says how strong the evidence is.
Complete resection (parotidectomy with facial-nerve preservation where possible) and neck dissection for high-grade; post-operative radiotherapy for high-grade, close margins, perineural invasion, T3-4 or node-positive disease.
Definitive radiotherapy; carbon-ion or neutron therapy for adenoid cystic carcinoma where available (COSMIC, Heidelberg).
HER2+ SDC: trastuzumab + docetaxel or trastuzumab deruxtecan; AR+ SDC: androgen deprivation (leuprorelin/bicalutamide; enzalutamide); NTRK-fused secretory carcinoma: larotrectinib or entrectinib; ACC: lenvatinib or axitinib for progressive disease, observation if indolent.
Platinum-based chemotherapy (CAP, carboplatin-paclitaxel); pembrolizumab for TMB-H/MSI-H or PD-L1-positive; clinical trials.
Generated from this cancer's standard of care, biomarkers and open problems. Take the group that matches where you are. To tick, add your own and print, open the one-page appointment sheet.
Trials open now for this cancer in OnCo, largest phase first. Joining a trial is a decision like any other: ask what the comparison arm is, whether a placebo is used, and what happens if you leave. The cancer page searches ClinicalTrials.gov live for more.
Much of what helps in the first weeks is free if you know to ask: testing, helplines, rides and lodging, second opinions, trial travel.
Every term links to the glossary.