>>>Kennedy.
>>>
>>>How did it go from inoperable to operable? Aside from just dropping the "in" of course.
>>
>>By finding the surgeon who was capable of doing the job. There are plenty of surgeries that you'd only want to have done by one of the, say, five people in the world who know how to do it right.
>>
>>The fact that he went to Duke to have it done, rather than staying in Boston (which has a tremendously good medical community) says that this surgeon is something special.
>>
>>Tamar
>
>So, it really comes down to that inoperable/operable is based on the doctors experience/skill. It was only inoperable to the first doctor. To the second one, it was ok to operate. I always thought of it as a hard fact, but it's really just an opinion.


Part of it may depend on the meaning of "operable." If that is taken to mean the tumor is removed completely by surgery, then this type is NOT operable. The purpose of the surgery (as it was explained on TV) was to significantly reduce the amount of cancer on the brain so that a lesser dose of chemo/rediation might kill the rest. This type of cancer apparently is all through a portion of the brain....in "the folds" too.