[Jackie07]

Here's the information from the ACS site about staging:

http://www.cancer.org/Treatment/Unde...gnosis/staging

A cancer's stage does not change

An important point some people have trouble understanding is that the stage of a cancer does not change over time, even if the cancer progresses. A cancer that comes back or spreads is still referred to by the stage it was given when it was first found and diagnosed, only information about the current extent of the cancer is added.

For example, if a woman were first diagnosed with stage II breast cancer and after the cancer went away with treatment it came back with spread to the bones, the cancer is still a stage II breast cancer, only with recurrent disease in the bones. If the breast cancer did not respond to treatment and spread to the bones it is called a stage II breast cancer with metastasis in the bones. In either case, the original stage does not change and it is not called a stage IV breast cancer. A stage IV breast cancer refers to a cancer that has already spread to a distant part of the body when it is first diagnosed. A person keeps the same diagnosis stage, but more information is added to the diagnosis to explain the current disease status.

This is important to understand because survival statistics and information on treatment by stage for specific cancer types refer to the stage when the cancer was first diagnosed. The survival statistics related to stage II breast cancer that has recurred in the bones may not be the same as the survival statistics for stage IV breast cancer.

At some point you may hear the term "restaging."Restaging is the term sometimes given fordoing tests to find the extent of the cancer after treatment. It may be done to measure the cancer's response to treatment or to assess cancer that has come back (recurred) and will need more treatment. Often this involves the same tests that were done when the cancer was first diagnosed: exams, imaging tests, biopsies, and possibly surgery to restage the cancer. Rarely, after these tests a new stage will be assigned, written with a lower-case "r" before the new stage to note that it is different from the stage at diagnosis. The original stage at diagnosis always stays the same. While testing to see the extent of cancer is common during and after treatment, actually assigning a new stage is rarely done, although it is more common in clinical trials.