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SunDiego · 08-20-2010, 09:59 AM

My wife had a lumpectomy (7mm IDC with 0/13). Doctors locally staged her at 1b. We didn't like the direction the care was going locally, so we went to another med onc who requested full restaging. Brain MRI, bone scan, PET/CT, tumor markers.

Well, Stage 1b became Stage IV overnight when a 3cm mass on the liver lit up and the tumor markers were highly elevated.

Chemo (TCH) recommended would have stayed the same either way, but in this case doing all the full scans for a "stage 1" were critical. Now we know what we are dealing with - otherwise if we stayed locally the liver may never have been found.

As a result we are all for 'over' staging and setting baselines.

08-20-2010, 09:59 AM	#41
SunDiego Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2010 Posts: 34	Re: Pet Scan for Stage 1? My wife had a lumpectomy (7mm IDC with 0/13). Doctors locally staged her at 1b. We didn't like the direction the care was going locally, so we went to another med onc who requested full restaging. Brain MRI, bone scan, PET/CT, tumor markers. Well, Stage 1b became Stage IV overnight when a 3cm mass on the liver lit up and the tumor markers were highly elevated. Chemo (TCH) recommended would have stayed the same either way, but in this case doing all the full scans for a "stage 1" were critical. Now we know what we are dealing with - otherwise if we stayed locally the liver may never have been found. As a result we are all for 'over' staging and setting baselines.