Harry, in my case, the swollen part of my tongue was clearly down front, so my ENT did a punch biopsy from underneath into what he felt was the harder tissue -- This revealed the SCC with no need for any scan; the subsequent scans being used to determine the extent and base for a surgical plan.

I had no pain from the tumor itself, but the entire area was swelling and became sensitive enough to the point where I had pretty much gone back to a liquid diet because chewing and swallowing were becoming a chore.

My next outbreak was on BOT and was sensitive to the touch, plus was giving me ear aches -- It was clearly visible but even going back and looking at a CT scan from several weeks before, it pretty much didn't show (My surgeon, his residents and the CT radiology doc were all looking with benefit of hindsight path report of SCC and still couldn't see it -- However, it showed clearly on an MRI, on which my latest free flap was based).

BTW, the UWMC imagery dept is using a GE machine that was getting twice the number of scans in one take compared to the Siemens used at my former scan center.