Hi Mary --

The advice John's doctors gave you is about the same that our Hopkins docs said -- if the initial scans showed anything suspicious, they would biopsy if easily accessible (e.g. base of tongue) or oterwise wait a month and re-do the scan. They might also add an MRI.

However, they do not rely on just a CT scan but do a fused PET/CT scan which is apparently the currently recommended approach at most CCCs. You may wish to ask about John getting one of these -- it involves injection with a radio-labelled glucose compound which is preferentially taken up by active cells (read: cancer cells and some others). This coupled with the image from the CT allows a trained radiologist to determine if the "suspicous" area is metabolically active or just scar tissue.

Gail