The swollen lymph node brought me to the doctor. There is very little risk with the FNA, maybe slightly more with a surgical biopsy for spread. If surgery is going to be done, some don't like to do an FNA. I had probably 5 of them. I can see false positives after radiation treatment, which happened to me. As Ed posted, check NCCN guideline for work-up, diagnosis, treatment, follow-up, for the oropharynx or oropharyngeal cancer. Also, in addition too NCI, NCCN hospitals, check U.S. News Report Best Hospital's 2013, which ranks the the top hospitals in the county by specialty. Check for otolaryngology ENT and Cancer. Number one for ENT is John Hopkins, and number one for cancer is MD Anderson, and many others in the top 16. Many if these are on the NCCN, NCI listings too, and can link to the hospitals website, there you can see the types of treatments done, doctors backgrounds, and and further information on rankings in U.S. News report.