Teresa,

My tumor was close, in the oropharynx, (soft palet). That would be just in front of where your husbands SCC is. My location was also very rare and in a place they prefer not to operate on considering the quality of life issues regarding the removal of the soft palet.

I�ve had good success with the radiation so far (out of treatment 4 weeks) I had the newer IGRT (image guided radiation treatment) which is IMRT with a CT type scanner attached.

The big deal my doctors made when I was diagnosed was how invasive the SCC was in the tissue (I was minimally invasive to non-invasive T3 = 3 cm in size). What that means is that it was not deep in the tissue but fairly spread out. I had no involvement of the nodes so they recommended no chemo.

Please post as much of the technical information you are getting from your doctors here. There are folks here who are great at bringing all of this information down to a scale I can understand.

Although no posters here had exactly the oral cancer I did, the information, support and other help I received certainly saved my mental health as I moved through the process. I was a much better informed and prepared patient and self advocate also.

Kelly