reddoggie. Very often in these cancers there are micromets to the nodes in the neck that cannot be seen with CAT scans or MRI's. These occult mets finally show themselves as actual tumors or malignant nodes a year to two later. Ask your doctor if he will do a PET scan which looks for things which are too small to be seen by these other scans, actually high metabolism in cells - which is a sign of malignancy many times. Before anyone assumes that a surgical only solution to these head and neck cancers is the final solution, they should at least have this scan. Please do not miss your quarterly recalls. This cancer recurres all too frequently, and if it does, you want to catch it at the earliest possible opportunity.