John

I can only address your first question this way: Stage III is earlier than Stage IV. David and Brian are right that staging was then, this is now. I echo the caution that PET/CT scans in particular come with worrisome legal disclaimers by the radiologist that cancer cannot be totally excluded whenever there is as spike in the sugar uptake. That's why my first test was just an MRI six weeks after TX. Both my Petscans in May and last week had bright yellow spots in the mouth. Long story short, I had to get the head of Nuclear Medicine at my CCC to personally read the last one in order to get the scary language dropped in this last one. Just a heads up not to worry if there is junk about SUV and FDG uptake sprinkled in the report. Instead rely upon your follow up team's clinical exams.