If your teeth are in good shape, you can probably get by with having good dental work done prior to treatment and getting the dentist to prescribe prescription strength floruide toothpaste and rinse,; however good detnal care is essential for now on due to reduced saliva if you have rads. DH kept his teeth, as have several people I have known. One guy had problems with 'scatter burns' on his tongue caused by the rads bouncing off old amlagum fillings. They made him a mouthpiece that was supposed to prevent this, but it didn't work. This aparticular friend, who also had no risk factors for cancer, was told by his doc that his CA was caused by HPV. They can usually tell by the lesions if it is HPV.

Also, another friend of mine had a large portion of her tongue removed had portions of a muscle from her upper arm used to reconstruct her tongue. Even though there are certain protocols to treatments, there are also varying ways to treat a lot of these cancers. My own huband had a treatment called RADPLAT that is only available in ten centers in the US. The goal of RADPLAT is organ preservation while defeating the cancer. Here is an article about it:

http://theoncologist.alphamedpress.org/cgi/content/full/11/5/469

One of the doctors who created this treatment is in Springfiled, Illinois. If you can get over there prior to your treatment and want a second opinion about having RADPLAT instead of the standard treatment send me a private email at mjnye265@aol.com and I can give you the contact info.