I had my first follow up appointment with my ENT today and everything was fine. He scoped my throat and had an overall ENT checkup. Since cancer was found in one of my lymph nodes, I asked his opinion on removal of the gland and he replied only if there is a problem with them. Both of my oncologist replied the same. I would like the opinion of some of our members. Thanks!

Also, the ENT wants to see me monthly for the first year, every two months the second year, then every three months.

Susan

This is a function of the field of radiation and if the IMRT mapping included areas outside of the actual node that was malignant, ie known routes of mets, and the remaining nodes in the adjacent chains. Mapping of these feilds is still a subject of discussion and finite guidlines for treament vary from institution to institution and RO. In the opinion of someone who may be unqualified to discuss this from a perspective of personal experience ( I got the full blast before the days of IMRT) if things were in the feild, I would agree with your doctors. If you wanted to get a second opinion I would ask a surgical head and neck oncologist if he felt that doing a partial, modified neck disection was in order. My guess is he is going to agree with your docs. But IMHO this is a function of what got radiated.

Both Barry's RO and MO at Hopkins, and his ENT who is in private practice, put forth the same opinion as Susan's doctors (and as Brian) -- essentially, that the cancerous nodes plus others which could possibly have been cancerous or in path of mets (on both sides although Barry's affected nodes were only on the right side) were included in the radiation field and received the prescribed dose of radiation -- and with no current indication that the treatment failed they would prefer to continue to monitor rather than do additional surgery.

(Having said that, in Barry's case he has some examinations upcoming which will further evaluate treatment success; the initial exam by his ENT surgeon was a couple of weeks ago and like Susan's, the ENT said everything looked fine. So far...)

Gail