Hi English Girl, i'm a brazilian girl, almost the same age. My case is pretty like yours except i did not drink or smoke! I also had a small tumour. My doc which is awesome said that a neck dissection would be done if the depth of tumour was larger than 0.3 cm. Mine was 0.6. So depth is what matters not the size.

Other thing is the grade. Your tumour was well differentiated?

So, the good thing is that i had a neck dissection but none of them were positive.

December, 2011 - T1N0M0 SSC Oral Tongue sugery (Dec 07, 2011). Partial glossectomy, primary closure. Selective Neck dissection, all 57 nodes free. 29 at diagnosis, no risk factors at all. No smoking, drinking and HPV negative. Can you explain? I can't.