Dear Group,
I am the mother-in law of a 33 year old daughter-in-law who was diagnosed with a "papillary well defined squamous cell carcinoma" of the tongue last week, as far as we know it is stage one. Her mother died of this before her 30th birthday. We are all very frightened. My son (her husband of 4 months)lived as a child, in a pediatric oncology unit for most of 4 years with myself and my daughter, as his brother Jim (my other son) had Acute Myelo-Monocytic Leukemia when he was 8 years (he lived and is well.) So both Laura (daughter-in-law) and Erick (son and husband)have had scary encounters with cancer. What I wonder is this. Does genetic tongue cancer have a worse survival rate? Is it more virulent? The doctor , whom I will look up today or tomorrow is treating this aggressivly and will remove part of the tongue and the lympth nodes on the right side and then will do radiation.I should also mention that she ask a dentist about the spot one year ago and he said it was nothing, so she might or probably has had it for a year already before the biopsy . My daughter-in-law never smoked,drank,and exercises and eats very well. Does anyone know an answer to this question? I realize that I know very little about all of this as it is all so new and I haven't read most of this site , but if anyone can answer this please do so. thank you Kathy