The last sentence (bolded) in this excerpt from an OCF news feed about the NFL referee who had Base of tongue cancer made me wonder.
[quote]for treatment of a thumb-sized malignant tumor at the base of his tongue, where it connects with the back of his throat. He had 13 chemotherapy treatments and 33 zaps of radiation in a short period, to attack the tumor aggressively. Doctors told him if the tumor had been discovered as little as three weeks later the news would have been very dark for him. [/quote]
A thumb sized tumor would be "only" a T1 and likely Stage I.
So in three weeks, it could at worst only be T2 and maybe Stage II.
See the excellent summary of T size and staging on the OCF web page: OCF- Stages of Cancer
Guess I'm lucky to be alive with a T3 sized tumor back in 2007 and Stage IV. Yet every time I've had cancer, it's always been at least six weeks and longer before any TX started due to waiting for biopsies, scans, making radiation masks, simulations, second opinions. etc. Each time the doctors stressed that this is a slow growing cancer and the delay really did not matter.
Did I miss the blockbuster study on this?
Charm