Malwicker, thank you for the warning about vaso-constricting drugs (I myself am a self-trained monkey with the jargon). I'm adding it to my list of long-term issues to be on the watch for.

Here's a link to a study presented at the February HNCC conference that found distant mets later than typical and in atypical locations among a small sample of HPV+ oropharangeal survivors. I think this justifies more frequent scans over more years, contrary to the current trends limiting scans. These mets aren't going to be found through palpation!

http://www.redjournal.org/article/S0360-3016(13)03340-3/fulltext

For the truly geeky -- you know who you are -- here's a link to abstracts of all the HNCC papers presented at the conference -- scroll down to "Head and Neck Supplement":

http://www.redjournal.org/issues?issue_key=S0360-3016%2813%29X0017-3


53
T3N2aM0 HPV+
5/26/13 discovered painless superball-sized lymph node in neck
6/26/13 DX SCC R palatine tonsil
7/16/13 TORS tonsillectomy & selective ND, mets to 2 nodes
9/3/13 Cisplatin and rads begin, tolerated 1.5 of 3 planned chemo doses
10/16/13 Treatment ends
Dec 13 Ulcer appears at surgery site
Jan 17 Biopsy -- no cancer!
Feb 17 CT/PET Scan lights up tonsil bed & nasal cavity, docs say probably inflammation, don't panic, rescan when ulcer subsides