Little update after PET scan

Great news

Take care and good luck

Peter

Great news re NED. 
Do you mean your husband needs a dissection or just the one lymph node out? 
Nifty bit of a shortcut by the way. Some lateral thinking. Equally a pity we have to resort to that. 

That's really good news.

Thanks Dani Beesuit it will be a neck dissection. Again this could happen next week privately but we will probably have to wait a month on the nhs. Not sure our savings will stretch but hopefully we have got things moving 

That's brilliant news 

Hi it’s so wrong to have to pay private but well done in the thinking behind it. Everything x that it just his node that’s up. If the pet ct scan didn’t light up everything double x that there’s nothing. Hopefully no long wait. 
hugs Hazel xx

Dani

It is all a dissection.  Initially I had one enlarged lymph node removed (partial/selective dissection) .  Then I had all removed (modified radical dissection).  Both times they went in at the same place to reduce the physical scarring so the effect is the same although for me the side effects were greater the second time, but still quite manageable.

If they move on to remove other tissue then the name changes to "just" a radical dissection.

PFJTHS said:

Dani

It is all a dissection

Of course you’re right. I don’t always consider the proper medical terminology. I suppose I always think of something like a radical neck dissection. To my mind there seems to be a bit of a difference between excising a swollen lymph node v and dissecting an amount of tissue to look through largely invisible lymph nodes. 
Sorry  Worrylo for confusing things and thank you PFJTHS for correcting me. 

• Thanks Dani Beesuit and PFJTHS . I have read a bit about salvage neck dissections and read that in America they sometimes use skin from another area to replace neck so that skin could in theory be radiated again. Have you heard of this? Do you think it’s worth asking. Also if they did find cancer in lymph they removed would he need other treatment do you think? 
  Here is the article my.clevelandclinic.org/.../the-latest-in-oropharyngeal-salvage-neck-dissection

Questions for your oncologist.

If they found more cancer...then yes, he would need more treatment. More chemotherapy and Immunotherapy. One of our forum members has just finished a two year course of immunotherapy, with success, but that was not for neck failure but for distant metastasis. I have a friend who did fail his treatment and he is on a chemo regime that is keeping him well but not cured.

You are getting ahead of yourself though.