I had a botched tongue scc excision in 12/08. Their was a positive margin that the original institution missed and gave me no help discovering. Since then 2 lymph nodes have become palpable and are PET positive, (I was PET negative in January)

I currently have a firm hospital date for 04/06/09 and plan with shands at UF to do a partial glossectomy/neck disection followed by 6 wks 2/ day rads, no chemo. They feel that the timing of the progression to the nodes shows this to be very aggressive.

Today the H/N team at University of Chicago recommended that I hold up on that and are willing to see me on Friday 04/03/09 about an experimental chemo/rad treatment. The protocol calls for 8 weeks of treatment at every other week,(16 weeks total). Its some sort of concurrent chemo/radiation where you spend the whole week in the hospital and then go home for a week. Part of their interest is that I have never smoked, do not drink and have no comorbidities.

The every other week thing flies in the face of any sort of conventional radiation where you don�t give the tumor cells a chance to repopulate.

DOES ANYBODY KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS NEW TREATMENT???

Thanks,

Mike

Toung scc dx 12/08. botched surgery, positive margins undisclosed by treating institution, 2 nodes PET positive: looking at treatment alternatives