Before David gets everyone off on a tangent, I respectrully state that NO ONE currently can say with any certainty that lesser treatment WORKS in HPV positive tumors, though there is talk of funding a trial to scientifically figure this out. That will certainly be down the road, and any results that dictate changes in treatment patterns are even fruther away. Secondarily, there is no practical way to determine if a male is positive for the virus at this time except in an excised tumor. In females the only place that we can be cetain of finding it is in the cervix and that does you little good since we do not understand at this time the relationship between infection in one area of the body and tansfer to another.

Neck dissections may become unncecessary in the future, but there is no clinical data that says that if you have nodal involvement that rad chemo alone can deal with it. When there is some trial we will know. In the meantime there is only anecdotal evidence and long term results from those whose doctors are choosing to pass on the proceedure is 5 years away, and is not being collected in any organized manner. Meaning that data will remain anecdotal to that particualr doctor and institution and not necessarilly become a standard adopted by others.

Survival does not mean that you are here tomorrow, it means your life continues until some other untimely thing happens to you, perhaps not cancer. Anyone under the 5 year standard (which is not written in concrete) that hasn't addressed the disease with the biggest hammer possible and available to them at the time, does so at their own risk. We just do not know if lesser treatments are enough or not.