Hello all,
I am just past a year out from the completion of my treatment for SCC of the tongue - Chemo/IMRT. I was stage 2 with no metastisis. Everything to date has been right on target for healing and no signs of recurrence. I'd had two PET scans following treatment which showed no metastisis whatsoever. I just had my third follow up PET/CT last week, and really felt positive about the outcome.

I got the results. The findings go like this: "Moderately increased FDG accumulation within and enlarging infrahyoid right internal jugular vein lymph node. This has developed since the prior examination October 2006 and is concerning for metastatic spread of the patient's primary tumor. No evidence of recurrence of the primary tumor on this examination."

I could clearly see the white spot on the PET images - where there was never any white before and way down at the base of my neck, where I'd never had any other issues during or after treatment.

So...I'm not a doctor and I guess I'm not supposed to be able to interpret that but it seems pretty obvious. I'll be at my primary doctor on Monday and I guess I'll find out what he thinks I should do.

Is surgery probably the most likely outcome? I'm trying to study up on other cases where people have had lymph node metastisis after the primary tumor has cleared up, and get a feel for what I'm going to be looking at.

thanks,
Steve