When I went to a head/neck cancer conference last spring all the doctors emphasized:

"A neck swelling or mass should be considered cancer unless proven otherwise!"

All said they were all hearing far too many stories of misdiagnoses, trivializing the problem etc. etc. by GPs -- it seems as if many people have the same experience as above.

My husband went to Johns Hopkins for treatment (#1 otolaryngology dept. in country) , second opinion at Sloan-Kettering (on treatment, not diagnosis) -- had 33x tomoTherapy radiation, 7x carboplatin, amifostine all the way through (ugh!). He also had a complete clinical response and is doing great 16 months out. No surgery other than tonsillectomy which was when his cancer was diagnosed. His cancer was human papilloma virus-16 (HPV) positive, which many tonsillar/base of tongue cancers are (esp. in non-smokers).

(He is now in a clinical trial for a new therapeutic (curative) HPV vaccine at Hopkins, maybe in years to come it will be the cutting edge treatment but still years away, even if the initial trials are successful).

Gail