Hello everyone,

A couple of weeks ago, I introduced myself to the group. My name is Gino, I'm 34 years old and was diagnosed with a stage 1 SCC to the tongue late December. I am being treated at Sylvester, a CCC in Miami, FL. On January 10, I had a partial glossectomy and a modified radical neck dissection.

The original pathology report came back clean. A second pathology report revealed a microscopic speck of cancerous cells in one of my lymph nodes. My doctor recommended radiation. A couple of you have mentioned that I should not only get radiation, but chemotherapy as well. This is because the chemo presumably enhances the effectiveness of the radiation.

I saw the radiation oncologist on Monday. He specializes in head and neck cancers and assured me that, in my case, chemo was unecessary. He recommended 6 weeks of radiation (IMRT) treatment, which he says will be tolerable. He also mentioned that if there are any microscopic cancerous cells left in me (and there's a very good possibility that there are not), they will be on the right side of my neck (where I had the dissection). I should also mention that I was injected with a nuclear dye prior to surgery to see where my sentinel lymph nodes "drained." Based on all of this, he was confident he knew where any microscopic cancer cells, if any, would be located at this point.

Is this doctor's recommendation (of forgoing chemo in cases like mine) consistent with what you guys know? Of course, I do plan to see a chemo specialist as well--but I once again want your opinions on this matter.

regards,
Gino