Jane, I am another person who had T2 cancer with no signs of spread to the nodes but had radiation recommended. You ask alot of good questions above and some I can't address because I am just recently out of radiation and chemo so I don't know what my final degree of salivation will be (I can say that my teeth and jaw are fine though I will have to be extra diligent in dental care for the rest of my life).

But I do know something about what they "aim" at when there is no tumor, or affected nodes, during radiation (by the way, asking questions about what they aim at really only makes sense with somehting like IMRT where different amounts of rad are directed to different parts of the oral cavity). My understanding of what they did in my case is that they directed the radiation most strongly at the areas most likely to be involved in a recurrence or spread of cancer. That is, they directed it at the original tumor site on my tongue as well as the left side of my neck where there could have been some cancer cells caught in smaller lymph channels (no longer are there nodes there) as well as the lymph nodes on the right side of my neck, in case there was spread to the other side and of course the rest of my oral cavity as well.

I had 6.5 weeks of radiation, I think this is pretty standard. Gary has the link to protocol guidelines put together by a number of the CCCs for treatment and those guidelines contain the answer to what is standard and recommended.

Hope this helps.

Nelie