My boyfriend has just been diagnosed with tongue cancer (Monday 5/5). He is scheduled for surgery 5/27th to...
- Remove cancerous portion of tongue (edge middle right side)
- Perfor neck dissection to "remove nodes" from all zones on the right side of his neck. The doctor palpated and reports no unusually-sized nodes by touch on his right side of neck.

Other data:
- History of cancer in family, though not oral.
- Was a smoker for 10 years.
- Xrays have been done.
- MRI is being done this Saturday.
- We're scheduled for 2nd and 3rd opinions, at Stanford Oncology Clinic and also Kaiser Oakland ENT.

We've done a bunch of research and have some questions for you wonderful folks:

- Why not remove just zones 1 through 3, as these seem to be the sentinel nodes when it comes to oral cancer, especially given the nodes are not enlarged by touch?

- Is it node REMOVAL? or node slicing?

- Does removal of nodes from the neck mean microscopic removal, as opposed to some node removals that involve taking a bit of the fatty tissue around a node (like with breast surgery, some times)

- The doctors says it's going to be 3 days recovery in the hospital. Is that strictly because of the drainage that must be done at the neck site? Will he be on tube-feeding, given tongue-section removal?

Best wishes to all of you,
Mary

You have not mentioned the means of diagnosis to this point. An MRI or CT of the neck with contrast will indicate involved nodes. Your post makes me feel like someone is making a decision if there is involvement based on palpation of an area and that only would (if the fingers are highly skilled and experienced) find enlarged nodes of significant involvement. It would not disclose those involved nodes which have not reached a size or density to be distinguished as "at risk" or suspicious by palpation. That an MRI is scheduled for the future is completely necessary to know what

Thank you for the informative and patient reply!

Means of diagnosis was a biopsy to the tongue. There was leukoplakia that Peter didn't like the looks of, so he got it biopsy'd last yr. It was AOK. But several months later, and the biopsy had not healed properly still. So he went in and asked what to do. They said they'd remove the biopsy area of his tongue and stitch it closed. They did so. He went in 1 wk. later to get the two stitches removed and they started in with "You have cancer...Was that too abrupt?"

Good news is the doc says it is stage one.

MRI was noisy. We look forward to the results on Tuesday (tomorrow)....

Cheers!
Mary

I don't wish you to start thinking down a negative pathway, but the doctor will really not know what stage the cancer is until that MRI comes back and he finds that he has no involved nodes or other suspect areas associated with it. If it is clean, than indeed your husband is a stage one, and that would be good news because it is highly treatable with good long-term survival prospects. Please post the results here, to keep us up to date on what we hope will be good news.