Cancer of the tonsil
My husband was treated for cancer of tge tonsil caused by HPV . He underwent 40 radiations and 2 chemo treatments almost 2 years ago. Now his latest scan shows a 3 cm tumor on his kidney and new lesions on his liver. Is this common for a metastasis of this type of cancer?
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Leoff,
I'm Carol, a moderator here and an RN. It's not really common to have cancer of the tonsil metastasize to the kidney or liver. It happens more often in HPV positive tonsil cancer, but more commonly would spread to somewhere closer to the original cancer, to the lungs, or lymph nodes. There hasn't been a lot of research on exactly what you have because it's uncommon. HPV related tonsil cancer seems to be more likely to travel to distant sites than HPV negative, but HPV tonsil cancer has had a slightly less percentage of tonsil cancer that recurs. In the tonsil and nearby sites it responds to treatment more favorably than HPV negative. Also, smokers are more likely to have distant metastasis than non-smokers. Did they identify HPV in the metastases?
Carol
Leoff, I did see that they talked about the average time of diagnosis of metastasis from HPV cancer to distant sites being between 16.4 months and 24 months.
Carol
Hi Carol, my husband completed 8 Chemo treatments (Cisplatin) and 7 weeks of radiation on March 6, 2017. He still has a white coating in his mouth at the tumor site. Doctors doing a PET SCAN May 22, 2018. Said that it does not look like
Thrush or mucosis. Might be residual cancer. Treatment may not be 100% successful. If it is cancer, what might be
a second line treatment. Any idea what this white coating could be?
@leoff What have you learned-is the recurrence cancer of the tonsil or something else?
C