I always find the discussion about numbers/stats and this horrible disease challenging to read about, here and in the clinical journals.

Everyone is different but for me I find I have the tendency to begin reading clinical journal articles on HNC- get depressed by the current ones that start with some version of "the long term prognosis for this group is poor" and usually keep reading until I find one or more that start with something like "this trial demonstrates significant improval in survival rates due to ( fill in the blank)".

That said, I'm very grateful to those hard-headed scientists and highly knowledgable lay people who continue to use every means possible -research, trials, statistical analysis,cross-disciplinary discussion/cooperation - to try and understand what the heck is going on and how HNC survival rates can be improved, including promoting ways of earlier detection.

Thanks to all of you on this site. You are truly wonderful.

Mary