PET Scan

[KG1993]

How often does one have a PET scan after chemo finished? Stage 4

[NanaJoni]

I finished chemo in May but had a lung complication and was on prednisone for 6 mos. Just had PET scans and CT of head last month. Won't have more scans for 1 yr unless symptomatic. I was stage 1.

[hutchibk]

My case: (before the clinical trial I am currently in)
Being stage IV, I have stayed in treatment non-stop for the last 6 years, so depending on how well maintained I was, I saw the doc either every 3 weeks or every 6 weeks, so subsequently we followed tumor markers every 3-6 weeks. We did CTs about every 4-6 months. We did brain MRIs every 3 months. If anything was questionable on tumor markers, we referred to scans. If scans showed nothing obvious, we did PET/CT scan for deeper diagnostic... turned out to be about every 6-9 months.

All that said, we originally did a baseline PET/CT when I was finished with my first round of chemo after being diagnosed with stage IV mets. I stayed on Herceptin non-stop, with just chemo added in at times... except for the 16 months in between that I was on Tykerb/Xeloda.