Dear jag, I would like to know more about the "floor of mouth" diagnosis. That was John's diagnosis. During surgery, they removed part of his tongue, part of the floor of mouth and jaw bone on the side with the tumor. I have always been somewhat confused about the diagnosis. Amy

I understand that tongue and floor of mouth are close but I am concerned the bx was floor of mouth and now I see all this talk about glossectomies. I guess I will know what it means later today . My husband's actual bx'ed lesion is so small I am trying to keep up hope that it will me a less radical procedure needed.

jag

Surgery scheduled Monday. Wide excision of lesion with mapping. All LN clear.

Best wishes for successful treatment. Please let us know.
Love from Helen

We feel very blessed that this was caught early and is considered a stage 1 lesion. I will let you know after his surgery Monday how everything goes Thanks to all for your suppport and workds of kindness

It's too soon in the diagnostic process to speculate on the outcome. He needs a lot testing before they can get a clear picture:

PET or PET/CT
MRI
CT
Chest xray
baseline hearing test
TSH baseline
Kidney (creatinine) clearance
and all kinds of other lab and bloodwork

Has all of this been done?

Was that .4cm that would be 4mm x 4mm x 2mm? 2mm is as small as can be detected by current scanning modalities. What did you mean by "all margins are involved"? They either get "clear margins" or not typically.

What staging? How invasive? What is the differentiation? These are questions to ask.

Many of us only had chemo and radiation and no surgery.

I would hazard a guess that if the lesion was that small there may be no node involvement. They can feel (palpate) a node above 1cm.

By floor of mouth do you mean under the tongue?

Sorry to ask so many questions I am just trying to get a clearer picture so we can appropriately respond to you.

Is he being seen at a Cancer Center or Comprehensive Cancer Center? If not, I would strongly urge you to get a second opinion from one, if nothing else. It is critical that this be done PRIOR to starting treatment.

I checked there are none in Rhode Island but here is a link to the list:

http://www3.cancer.gov/cancercenters/centerslist.html#L25

Hello Jag,

Welcome to the oral Cancer Foundation. You won't find a more informative site on oral cancer on the web.
There are alot of unanswered questions as Gary points out. Please post more info so we can help you. Be sure to write the questions down ahead of time, we never remember all of them at the appointments. If possible take along a thrid party, It's alot of information to digest when the doctor is talking.
Hoping they caught this at it's earliest stage and his treatment goes well.

All My Best, Danny Boy

jag, Boston isn't that far from you. Whatever opinion you get about whether he'll need anything beyond surgery, you'd be well-served by getting a second opinion on it from Dana Farber (where I went for my second opinion and they were extremely helpful)!

Nelie

We go to surgeon tomorrow so far he has had a head and neck CT ( no results yet) and the blood work for kidney function studies. Our plan as of now is to listen to what the Dr has to say, he is considered the best Cancer Dr. in RI and this has been expressed by many medical people in our 10 day wait time for an appointment. However, I am not going to take a 1 man answer if the dx is positive for nodes and will go to Boston. Gary, the lesion was on the floor of the mouth to the left of the tongue base and appeared to be a slaavery gland stone I think it was lateral of the tongue and the path report states floor of mouth I am not sure how lateral it must be to not be considered the tongue or how far the microscopic tissue is involved

Nellie how long to get an appointment At Dana Faber once you called I have a feeling the surgury will be booked soon again hear say

Jag,

Sounds like the way my tongue cancer presented. It was under the tongue and the oral surgeon that did the initial surgery wasn't comfortable going deep into the floor of my mouth in his office, so the margins weren't clear. He sent me to an ENT and I had the scans and bloodwork etc, he also had another pathologist look at the slides from the original biopsy. I had clean up surgery at the tumor site, an alloderm graft placed, and 33 lymph nodes removed, all were clear. That was 3 years ago and I had no further treatment other than going to the doctor every month for the first year, 2nd year, two months and now three months. At the annual anniversary I get a CT w/contrast, chest xray and blood work.

I am one of the lucky ones that have not had extensive treatment, and I am diligent in my follow up care.

Good luck today to your husband!

Sincerely,
Lisa