My father age 69 had part of his tongue removed & had a neck dissection to remove lymph nodes. They also found cancer there. He is undergoing radiation treatment now. He has had ten treatments with 4 (or 5) more weeks to go. They told him they would give him a drug to prevent the destruction of his salivary glands. I assume it is Amifostine. However, they are telling him they are not sure they want to give it to him. He says they seem to be unsure of its effectiveness. Is this a very new drug? He is being treated at a Veterans Administration Hospital. Thank you.

Jayne, this has been around for a while. Search for it on the Internet and you will be able to pull up the clinical trial documents. As you can see from the responses to my original question, it does work. One SNAFU after another has postponed the beginning of my treatments, but I am definitely going to have it. Spitting is high on my list of necessary skills (grin). It is also known as Ethyol, so you can search for that too. Good luck!

Thank you. I will research the drug today for him.