I was initially misdiagnosed, by an ENT no less! Last October, I went to my primary care physician with a lump under my left jaw-I didn't even see the doctor, I saw the physician's assistant who was alarmed and considered it possibly serious. The PA gave me a referral to an ENT and a surgeon for a biopsy. I got in to see the ENT first, in November. The ENT gave me a another round of antibiotics (which the PA had already done and had me return in December. Lump still there, ENT released me from his care. By January it was still there, so I made an appointment and went back in February. This time the ENT took a biopsy and referred me for an MRI. Not trusting him by now, I made an appt with another ENT, who called for the results of the biopsy (malignant cells detected), and made an appointment for the the next day at the UCLA Head and Neck cancer center. The surgeon there scheduled me for a neck dissection, which I had in March.

A fine needle biopsy, however, can be a hit and miss proposition. Unless the needle actually hits the cancer cells and extracts them, you won't know they're there. Think of it like sticking a straw into a bag containing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. If the straw hits a spot where there is no jelly, all that will come out is bread and peanut butter.

PETscans require a certain minimum size to light up. I don't know what that threshhold is, but my current ENT said that she would see a tumor in my nasopharynx (with the lighted scope through the nose) first, before it would show up on a PET.