The Colon Club

Husband's oncologist suggested Dana Farber or Memorial Sloan Kettering for his second opinion. Husband is not inclined to travel to NYC so plans on getting an assessment from Dana Farber. However, when I spoke to my own primary care physician (in Massachusetts) about the choices, he suggested Massachusetts General Hospital instead. He said that he has a number of patients with cancer who have done remarkably well with treatment there.

Does anyone have any opinions about Dana Farber and/or Mass General?

Hi there,

I'm currently a patient at Dana Farber and am very satisfied with my treatment there. I honestly don't think you can make a bad decision between the two though. The benefits of being a patient at DFCI for me are:

-Dedicated cancer center with a great reputation
-I trust my medical team and know that my oncologist and surgeon work closely together.
-The Young Adult Program @ Dana

Of those I think MGH only doesn't have a Young Adult Program.

I started out at Dana Farber/Brigham & Women's because I went to the ER which led to my diagnosis. I stayed there because I have an oncologist friend at Dana who helped me navigate the system, my surgeon came off his sabbatical to take care of me, and it is as nice an environment as I can imagine in this situation.

I also really feel that the medical community works pretty well together and if there was ever a study or something that would be better for me at Mass General, I am confident that my doc would direct me that way.

If you or your husband have any specific questions about Dana, please feel free to reach out.

Best of luck!
Kara

I started at DF and moved to MGH. By most peoples' accounts, they're both great.

Here's why I've preferred MGH:
My doctor/surgeon at MGH was more aggressive. DF doctor said resecting my liver tumors was impossible unless the tumors shrank a lot on chemo. MGH said there was a good chance of getting the liver resection done, even without tumor shrinkage. Sloan Kettering agreed with MGH.
Also, MGH is a full-time, full service hospital. Dana-Farber is an out-patient clinic of Brigham and Women's. That mostly doesn't matter, except that Dana Farber closes at 5. One time my chemo day was running behind schedule, and they cancelled my Avastin infusion because they couldn't get it finished by 5. That wouldn't have happened at MGH.

Realistically though, if you're going to Boston, schedule appointments at both places. Cancer is complicated and different experts will have different perspectives. Given how easy it would be to do both, I think it would be totally worth it.

Thanks APCdiddy and Kara. I will give this some further thought.

ACPdiddy and Kara,

We are going to try to schedule back to back appointments (with traffic it can take 30 mins to go 3 miles!) at both DF and MGH. We are wondering if you would recommend your oncologists? May we have his or her names?

Going to both sounds like a great idea - and, yes, definitely plan for that traffic! I would gladly recommend my onc, Dr. Jennifer Chan. Good luck!

We have been to both and think highly of both facilities. We use Dana Faber as the second opinion who have set the chemo plans; and Mass General affiliates to do the local treatments to save on travel and parking expenses. So far my wife is in this for two and a half years and we have been to Dana Farber only twice, but it was worth the second opinion each time. Dana Farber has set the plan that has made her NED and the local hospital has provided the comfort of being close to home for care while executing the Dana Farber plan.

What ever you do, always get a second opinion from an outside party. It is worth it to learn from everyone.
Good luck!
WS

Warrior, thanks for the input!

I spent some time this morning looking at the profiles of the doctors at Mass General's Cancer Center. I did a search for CRC as specialization. All of their CRC specialists have clinical trials and novel therapies in their list of clinical interests. My husband is not at all interested in clinical trials or anything novel. Unless he is at the end-stage where he is told "there is nothing further we can do," he will not even entertain the idea of being "a guinea pig." Since he does have liver mets, we have narrowed down our choice to Dr. Andrew Xiuxuan Zhu who is an expert in liver cancers. http://www.massgeneral.org/doctors/doctor.aspx?id=17361

Next, I will be looking at the doctor profiles at DF.

mpbser wrote:...Does anyone have any opinions about Dana Farber and/or Mass General?

My only opinion on Mass General pertains to the time when I wanted to get a second opinion on a PET/CT scan that I had had, so I sent my PET/CT CD-ROM via FedEx to Mass General Imaging Department for a 2nd opinion. I was very satisfied with the report that their radiologist prepared for me. It was more detailed than the report from my original radiologist, and it clarified a number of issues for me. This is my only experience with Mass General.

PET/CT scans are particularly difficult to interpret and are prone to many types of False Positive / False Negative errors. That's why I sent three of mine out for second opinions.

Out of the three places where I have sent CD-ROMs for PET/CT scan second opinions over the years, Mass General was the best in my opinion.