Chuck,

Most likely you would not test positive for HPV meaning that your cancer has proven over the years to be more aggressive and more prone to recurrence than it's HPV counterpart. Being a CPA I always look at the numbers but they don't mean much in a potentially life or death situation but it has been proven that your chances of recurrence are greater with HPV negative vs HPV positive. What puzzles me is Mayo saying you only have a 15 - 20% recurrence chance when I see a large percentage of HPV negative posters here, with and without radiation, having a recurrence. What do they know about you and your SCC that would lead them to conclude that you have what I would call a better than most recurrence chance?

Even with radiation there is no guarantee that it will prevent a future recurrence and there is a school of thought that with a small, say Stage I tumor, with no nodal spread, etc, to save the radiation if and when it's needed and plenty here have done just that. It's their low percentage chance that strikes me as odd.

Just because I have more posts than anyone else and my name appears in RED that doesn't mean I know more than anyone else but knowing what I have learned about this cancer since 2006 and if it were me, I would press Mayo for their reasons for such a favorable recurrence risk and/or seek another opinion from another CCC before I made up my mind on further Tx.