Hi there... and welcome.

The nodes are a stop gap. Most of the time the cancer makes its way into the nodes and then onto other locations. I had no cancer in my nodes on 3 separate scans, yet there was one node that I could definitely feel and it was full of cancer. They discovered this upon removal of the node during my surgery.

A clear CT is reassuring but bear in mind, microscopic cancer doesn't show on a scan, and this cancer sometimes seeds to the nodes even in the early stages. (I think this is very much dependent on the aggressiveness of the cancer to begin with) tumor size can be taken into consideration, but I have also met people with superficial stage one cancers that did have invasion into the nodes. This cancer doesn't follow any text book rationale, which is why I always push people to do what they can with regards to treatment - up front.

Mostly clear margins is NOT COMFORTING. You want completely clear. I would rather have more removed than not enough. And as Susan said, dysplasia is a crap shoot. Though I would say if you have already had a cancerous area removed, the dysplasia has a higher chance of changing - into SCC particularly if it is adjacent to the cancer.

so sorry you have to be here but it's a great group.

How large was your tumor? where are you being treated?

take care.