My fiance was just diagnosed with SCC in his left jaw plus two neck lymph nodes. He will need the jaw resectioned and rebuilt using bone from his leg. I'm guessing the lymph nodes will also be removed. The positive biopsy for the SCC was from his jaw bone after teeth were coming loose. This cancer is extremely fast spreading according to the oral surgeon who discovered it.

We live in northern Virginia, U.S.

We've been referred to Dr. Arjun Joshi with the George Washington University Cancer Center in the Washington DC area.

A friend of mine is a retired cancer researcher from NIH, and she's strongly urging us to consider MD Anderson, probably the one in New Jersey since it's a 4-hour trip rather than 20 hours to the Houston center.

Does anyone here have any experiences with jaw resection and re-build? Anybody gone through either GWU Cancer Center or MD Anderson in New Jersey?

I’ve been through all this. If you have specific questions I’d be happy to answer them. Writing about it all, I could easily get into book length, more than you need to know answers. So let me answer to most pressing questions that you have. I’m around the next few days and I’ll be sure to post if you do with questions.

While I can't answer your direct question, I can tell you that going to a CCC (and Anderson is one of the best) is very important since you get a team of specialists who've seen it all. Once started, follow up can often be done at a local place.