[Becky]

Dear Kim

Some in your situation would want to get scanned once a year and others go on and wait if symptoms should appear and not go away in 2-3 weeks.

One thing I do (and I am Stage 2) is MRI of the brain every 18 months or so. I figure this is the one place where finding something early has clear benefits. Some of these are that the tumor is smaller and may not have seeded the brain all over. This would allow you to just get one or two small nasties gamma or cyber knifed (and use some Tykerb too perhaps or only Tykerb) instead of Whole brain radiation at the get go.

Mets in other organs are going to respond the same if the tumor is 1 cm or 2 cm with chemo but the brain is different and the brain is who you are.

So that's why I do what I do - no scans/X rays to reduce radiation exposure (except mammo or if one should break their leg in an accident) and a brain MRI every now and again (I should be thinking about that sometime this yr).

Everybody needs to think this through on their own and their feelings on it.

For everyone else - this is for those who have successfully received adjuvant therapy. Those who are battling disease or are Stage 4 have and need testing to ensure what is going on unless markers or the Her2 serum tests are accurate for that.

Everyone to ask their docs how they feel about scans in general even if you don't want any to just see how most oncs feel about it. That would be interesting.

Merry Christmas Kimberly