Bob,

Welcome to OCF. You can find great resources and support here.

I was diagnosed with tongue SCC (Stage II) 15 years ago at age 39. It caught me totally by surprise since I was a lifelong nonsmoker and several doctors initially felt it was nothing to be concerned about. All tests showed that it had not spread to the lymph nodes. Unlike yours, mine was poorly differentiated.

While the results of my surgery were very good, the tumor board at the cancer center that was directing my treatment felt very strongly that I should proceed with radiation. I don't recall for sure how heavily the poor differentiation factored into that analysis, but they were quite emphatic about going after the cancer with everything available at the time. I had both external radiation and brachytherapy over the course of about 2 1/2 months. The cancer has not come back in 15 years.

Are you being treated at a comprehensive cancer center? If you've read some of the other threads on this site, you can see that many of us feel strongly that it's important to get the benefit of the depth and breadth of experience you can find at one of the major centers, particular when it comes to some of these kinds of judgment calls.

Cathy