STAGE IV/METASTIC

[Anonymous]

IS STAGE IV AND METASTIC THE SAME THING? CAN YOU BE STAGE IV WITHOUT METS?

[Kitty]

Stage IV means the cancer has progressed or spread to a distant site such as an organ, bones, etc. from the original location of the cancer. I guess the answer to your question is yes, Stage IV means having mets (at least until they are brought under control or NED), which happens all the time with chemo, herceptin and other treatments. There are lots of Stage IV people who are NED (no evidence of disease) and doing just fine. I hope this helps.
Kitty

[Lolly]

Mets can be local, regional and distant. I had local and regional mets; skin mets in my mastectomy scar(local), mets to supraclavicular lymph node(regional). Distant mets would be organ, bone or brain as Kitty points out. Also, there are different degrees in each stage, for example Stage 4A would not be as life threatining as Stage 4C.
Hugs,
Lolly

[Hope]

This post was very interesting as I have never heard of different stages for Stage IV. Do any of you have any more information on this. I am atStage IV with mets to bone and lung and would like to know what kind of STage IV I am.