I've read in other posts here that base of tongue is particularly agressive. All I know is that the base of tongue is grouped in with tonsils and soft palate as part of the oropharynx and three of the recent IMRT studies I have read are specifically looking at those three areas and the results don't seem to be that much different between the three. The MD Anderson study shows outcomes for BOT and tonsils to be extremely close. The Univ of Iowa study shows oropharyngeal cancer in particular to be getting good local-regional outcomes. The Sloan-Kettering study has an even mix of BOT and tonsil cancers and there is not reference to one having a better outcome than the other. One shows a table of the results of seven other published series using conventional radiation and I don't see much of a difference between tonsil and BOT outcomes there either.

Connie