I'm a 42 years old male, about 5 month ago, I had a severe sore throut very hi fever that would not come down with Motrine Tylonol. fever mantained 40 C degrees and with motrain will stay at 39.5 C. It all started on Thursaday with a feeling of havenies in my throut and by friday morning I woke up with chilles hight fever and sore throut that will radiate to my ears wehn trying to swallow. I spent all friday and all night with hight fever and sore throut. on Saturday I went to doctor and they did a culture for streo throut that came out negative, the throut was red but no other findings. the DR gave me an antibiotics shut and pills for ten days and asked to come back the next day if things stay the same. fever went down to 38.5 C with 3 pilles of motrain at a time. The next day i went back for the second antibiotics shut and gradully by monday the fever started to subside but the sore throut took about 2 weeks to get better. since then and for about a month I always had pain in my right side of my front neck that is vertical and into my jaw and occanssional dull ache in my ear with stiff neck and ache throut.

about four weeks after this, I went to my doctor for the pain that I'm having so she orderd a CT scan for my neck. the result of the ct scan showed Mildly enlarged Lymph nodes scattered on both sides of the neck roughly equally on both sides and are present in the submandibular region, the largest node on the left measuers about 1.05 CM and is seen anterior to the Jugular vein at the level of the hyoid. There is also soft tissue prominence in the area of the valleculae.
The conclusion of this scan was: Some Cervical adenopathy is present and appears to be fairly symmetric side to side, there is also soft tissue Fullness at the region of the base of the tongue and Valleculae, this may also relate to lymphoid hyperplasia, althought it is difficult to exclude a mass in this region, Correlation with direct visulization is recomanded.

My Dr reffered me to ENT and I was seen by his asisstance who preformed a endoscopy of my nose and throut and told me that she can see some fullness and the area is irretated. after telling her that I have reflux and I take omeparzol for it she gave me a dose of 2 weeks Amoxilene 825mg and asked me that I take my reflux medication and repeat the CT scan after 3 weeks.

I so did, after 4 weeks I repeated the CT scan in a different facillaty then the first sacn. and was scheduled for an appoitment with the ENT after two weeks, the 2nd scan result showed the following:

Base of the tongue mass which occupies the vallecula bilaterally althought silghtly larger on the right. The mass mesaures 2.5 CM in transverse X 2.0 CM in AP dimension.

Bilateral level II to level IV lymphadenopathy. the largest on the left jugulodigastric lymph node measures 1.6 CM and the largest on the right mesaures 1.6 cm, several subcentimeter level V nodes also noted bilaterally. small posterior neck nodes are noted the largest on the left measureing 1.0 CM

Conclusion was :

1- Base of the tongue/vallecular lesion consistent with head and neck squamous cell Carcinoma, Lymphoma is also a possible differential consideratin, Biopsy is Recommended.

My ENT DR called me and asked me to make may visite to his office this week rather then in 2 weeks.

I went and he took another look and he told me that he is not 100% convenced that it is cancer and he wantetd me to go for a biobsy in 2 weeks. when I asked him what is persantge he said 50/ 50 %.

So is it possible that after the CT scan indicated that the Mass is consistant with cancer to come out negative? has anyone know of such incident where the CT scan say cancer but it is not?

Welcome to OCF.

I am not a doctor or even anyone with any medical background. I just know that a biopsy is the way to tell for sure if it is cancer. Im sorry if my answer isnt more helpful. I do know how awful it is waiting for a test and then the results, its a very frightening time which seems to last forever.

Hope everything turns out to be negative.

True, it is fustrating and I already feel that it is indeed cancer, the odd thing is that 2 CT scans one month a part with two different findings, also I have not seen one case during my research that a CT scan indectaed Cancer and the biobsy came negative. The other odd thing after my last visit to my ENT the symptoms increased and the pain is worse althought it is better at times.
I guess I can predict the biobsy result giving the circumstances and I'm not sure why the ENT after looking in said it is 50/50 chance that it is cancer.

MaherC,
If the biopsy confirms Head & Neck cancer, you want to make sure your treatment is provided at a Comprehensive Cancer Center by a multidisciplinary team that routinely deals with numerous H&N cancer patients and uses state of the art RT systems.

This link provides CoC Accredited Cancer Center Hospitals and NIC Cancer Centers. Many show their annual case load by cancer type.

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/FTC/ftc_0.asp?sitearea=ETO

MaherC,

As Christine said a biopsy is the only way to know for sure. I truly hope that the biopsy comes out negative. I've been in your shoes and the waiting is awful. If the news is bad, follow Don's advice and seek treatment at a Comprehensive Cancer Center if possible. This website is an excellant source of factual information and also moral support.

I hope you get good news!

You need to get the biopsy done and put all the questions to rest. They will most likely put you under and you should have the results by the time you wake up. At least that's what they did with me.

Thanks All,

I looked into the Site that DonB provided there is few hospitals in my area as a matter of fact the ENT that I'm seeing is in one of them.

The strange thing when I looked into the case load, the numbers were very low for the Oropharynx cancer, the Hospital I will be doing the Biopsy at , had only 1 case diagnosed in 2006, so I guess this cancer is realy rare.

As for the biopsy it is scheduled for next Wednesday Nov 5. I hope I'll get the results that day like Davidcpa said. and I realy hope it will be negative, but again as I said with CT scan indecationg that the Mass is consistant with SCC, I think but dont hope that it will be positive since again as I said I have not seen a case with such CT Scan Findings that a biopsy came back negative unless it was a false negative.

Have any of you heard of such?

Welcome to our world of friends in time of need. As has already been stated, the biopsy is the only way to be sure.

Welcome to OCF. You are doing all the right things - staying on top of it and, like all the other said, there is no way to be sure without the biopsy. I am not aware of others who have had exactly that situation, but often by the time people arrive at OCF, they already have the diagnosis and don't relate the how they were initially diagnosed.

Breathe deeply - you're on top of it and we're here for you.

Donna

Until they take a piece of it and put it under the microscope to see what kind of cells are present, they really don't know.

In my experience, David got really good biopsy service -- I've always had to wait awhile.