Sandra, here. My mother Helen and I went to the Head and neck surgeon yesterday and he removed the staples from her neck dissection. She is doing very well after the tongue excision and neck dissection, especially for age 84.

The doctor said the edges of the excision were clean and that the nodes looked good. However, he said she has some perineural involvement in the tongue area. He explained briefly what that is, but wanted us to talk at length to a radiation oncologist. He said the need for radiation looked like it might be a judgment call, i.e., it wasn't a given.

Anyway, I have looked up "perineural involvement" on the Internet and it doesn't sound good. Even doing some reading about it, I still don't completely understand it and its implications. How can you have clean edges and still have perineural involvement?

Has anyone had "perineural involvement"? Can anyone explain it to me? Thanks.


Sandra
My mother's caregiver
Diagnosed 6/02 (at 84) with Stage 2 tongue cancer; surgery 7/02
Diagnosed June 03 with recurrence of tongue cancer and cancer of soft tissue under ear