swollen tonsils-how to test for cancer?

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1

hi everyone
,i have had mastectomy,chemo,radio,tamoxifen for nine months ,but had to stop recently as became sensitive to one of the ingredients
Now my tonsils are swollen ,and it is one of those things that are (I hope )nothing but I can’t make any assumptions about my health again
How do they test for cancer cells in the neck glands or tonsils?
I never used to be squeamish but can’t stand the thought of a needle biopsy in my throat.does anyone know what kind of scan would show up the neck glands or tonsils?
I really would appreciate any comments from others who have faced a similar situation .

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Hi

First just to say your tonsils are often the first area of deffence against infection and can and do swell up frequently.

Re your main point, as part of a drug trial to hopefully reduce the size of some bc prior to surgery I had a PET + CT scan, this showed a small nodule on my parathyroid gland.
I had this scanned (today) but although they were 99% certain it was ok they still did a needle biopsy in my throat. So think this is probably what they would do.

Know this is the last thing you wanted to hear.

All the best
g

3

thanks Glenna, I guess I have to make a fuss to get a scan here ,they don’t do them routinely.Just hope they go back to normal soon.the thing that scares me is I haven’t had any type of scan of neck or head,they just assume there is no spread because there is nothing found in the abdomen.
My mum died of a brain secondary,sometimes I want to check ,other times think I would prefer not to know if there is anything there .

4

Hi
Its not normall to do throat and head scans.
They only did it as this was picked up on the scan they were doing for the trial drug. Had full body scans as the drug is known to cause damage to heart and liver in some cases.
So if I wasnt being a human guinea pig nothing would have been done.

Hope youre feeling better and doing ok
All the best
g