 Administrator, Director of Patient Support Services Patient Advocate (old timer, 2000 posts)
Joined: Jun 2007 Posts: 10,507 Likes: 7 | Welcome to OCF, Soofy.
You will find info and support to help you learn and understand about oral cancer. Sorry, I am a bit unsure of exactly where your fathers cancer was located from your description. Things can be done differently in different countries too. It would be wonderful if there was a worldwide standard of care for all cancer patients.
Here at OCF we are made up of survivors and caregivers, not medical professionals. Second guessing what your doctors do is not something we can assist you with. We do try but we lack many years of medical training, having the patient in front of us and their full medical chart to read. Not that seeing a patient or having their life long medical history would help us to give an opinion. We do however have our own experiences plus all the info we have learned from being around the forum to help us to give you some sound advice.
First thing I would suggest is that your father quits smoking forever. There are many chemicals added to tobacco that are known to cause cancer. If a person continues to smoke after having cancer, the body will not heal as easily and also it will push the recurrence odds up much higher. No patient should use any tobacco products after having cancer, its like a time bomb in only a matter of time before something serious will happen.
If the physician is experienced in treating oral cancer they can visually see if something doesnt look right by doing the scope. Only if there is an area of concern would they have something to biopsy. Scans should be done only after waiting 3 months to give the body time to heal and for any swelling to go down. The mass could be scar tissue or inflammation, not just cancerous. My doc explained to me that the CT scan takes slides in such tiny sections that its not possible to see very much below 2 cm which is the size of a grain of rice. I would expect your fathers doctors will need to follow up with more testing to find out exactly what they are looking at.
I hope this turns out to be only inflammation and nothing serious! Best wishes!
ChristineSCC 6/15/07 L chk & by L molar both Stag I, age44 2x cispltn-35 IMRT end 9/27/07 -65 lbs in 2 mo, no caregvr Clear PET 1/08 4/4/08 recur L chk Stag I surg 4/16/08 clr marg 215 HBO dives 3/09 teeth out, trismus 7/2/09 recur, Stg IV 8/24/09 trach, ND, mandiblctmy 3wks medicly inducd coma 2 mo xtended hospital stay, ICU & burn unit PICC line IV antibx 8 mo 10/4/10, 2/14/11 reconst surg OC 3x in 3 years very happy to be alive  | 
