Surgery + Chemo Or Just Chemo ????

Hi All,

My mother has been detected with Non-Hodgekins Lymphoma in Jejunum Intestine. The tumor is about 8cm in size. This was detected in last CT-Scan. We talked with 2 oncologists. One recommended to start with Chemo, and the 2nd recommended to first do surgery, remove majority of tumor mass and then do the Chemo. Does anyone have any experience of such decision making process? What are pros and cons of each approach? Any other advice would be helpful as well.

Thanks.
Shailesh

What I don't understand is , how can they know that it is non hodgkins without doing a biopsy on the tumor.? Did they do a needle aspirate biopsy? If they did, this is not a definitive enough test. Did they biopsy it through a colonoscopy? if not and they are diagnosing it on scan results only it is not right.,Your mother should have diagnostic surgery like  I had for suspected  lymph node tumors in my retroperitoneal abdominal area.They had to cut me open to do this and I was in the hospital for 7 days. I was non hodgkins Cll/Sll lymphoma.Different types of lymphomas often  require different types of treatment.

Yes, she went thru Core biopsy which was done thru needle. That confirmed Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. We will be going through Surgery this week.