I am still new to this site and continue to be amazed at how uninformed I am. I was diagnosed with stage III/IV BOT Squamous Cell around end of April '06 and completed treatment in mid-July. Just pacing the floor now for especially the next year from what I understand.

I seem to have a lot more questions now than I did earlier and have one regarding Squamous Cell. Back when my ENT first gave me the verdict in April she made the comment that if I had to have cancer Squamous Cell was a better type to have. I am just curious at this point if such a statement is generally true from the experience of others? Is there any other type of cancer that attacks the BOT? It just seems like most everyone on this site has also had Squamous and I assume it is the most common form of oral cancer.

Bill Dozier

Hi Bill,

I am with you about being amazed on what I do not understand or know. Always learning. I am not aware of one cancer being better than another? They are all bad. Especially Squamous cell? Which is fast growing. I am surprised that person made that comment to you.

As for Squamous being the major player here is true, but I know a few others had some other cancer type or name.

Hope all is going OK for you.
OK, take care
Diane PS. I still consider my self new as well.

Bill,

I'm not a medical professional, but from everything I've read here in the past couple of years, I'd have to wonder where your ENT got that idea.

I do seem to recall that someone I worked with made a similar remark to me shortly after I was diagnosed years ago, and I think it was based on their having read something about skin cancer (and the fact that it's probably better to have squamous cell skin cancer than melanoma). I remember passing this comment along to my oral surgeon at the time, and he said that the person who said that obviously knew nothing about SCC of the oral variety, which certainly can metastasize elsewhere in the body.

Cathy

His comment is only accurate if you compare it to melanomas that can occur in the mouth as well on the exterior of the body, and are not necessarily correlated to sun exposure. (Dermatologists that know what they are doing even look between your toes for it). Melanomas are not that common in the mouth, but when the do occur there, have a very low survival rate. SCC is responsible for the overwheming majority of deaths in oral cancer because it occurs the most frequenty, about 85% of the time.