The Colon Club

What is a typical stage 1 follow up CT scan?
Does it include lungs?

In my case CT scan was only below diaphragm.

My husband was a high risk stage two, so it was from chin to thigh ct scan every three months. I think even for stage I it's chin to thigh, just not as frequent though.

deb m

I poked around google and couldn't find a stage specific follow up plan. I am sure it's out there, somewhere.

https://www.fascrs.org/patients/disease ... ed-version

This seems like a good article about follow up.

I wonder if they do not want to expose you to the extra radiation as a stage one?

I'd want my lungs included, as a baseline.

Perhaps I am wrong, and I hope someone in the know chimes in.

Stage 1 is in a grey zone. Here are the NCCN guild lines. Page 37. It depends if your stage 1 is a polyp cancer and if it has risky features. Most stage 1 don't have regular CT scans.

https://www.nccn.org/patients/guideline ... /colon.pdf

Andrea1976 wrote:Stage 1 is in a grey zone. Here are the NCCN guild lines. Page 37. It depends if your stage 1 is a polyp cancer and if it has risky features. Most stage 1 don't have regular CT scans.

https://www.nccn.org/patients/guideline ... /colon.pdf

Thank you for posting that link. It's helpful and has great info.

At my one year mark I had chest/pelvic/abdomen CT and they've not given me any since.

I was stage 3C and had to stop chemo after 3 rounds due to cardiac arrest from the chemo and they only had me doing CT scans every 6 months. I had the arrest this past December 31s and because I entered a clinical trial for a vaccine got one in March, and will be getting one on July 6th and then won't get one again for 6 months.

I just returned from my 1 year follow up appointment with my surgeon. He does not recommend CT scans for Stage 1 patients. He said he relies on CEA and as soon as he sees a trend in CEA, then he would scan. He wants to test CEA levels every 3 months.

This surgeon is not the one who did my surgeries (he left and went far away). This surgeon is highly regarded, but when I pushed on the CT scan, he cited recent data that indicate CT scans do not improve outcomes for Stage 1 patients. Is there anyone else who has not had CT scans after the initial surgery and treatment? If I really want a scan, he'll order it (or my PCP will); but he was pretty adamant that it was overkill.

Thoughts?

I get a full chest/pelvic/abdomen CT every 6 months. There is no standard follow-up protocol for stage 1, but I think I would want at least one full CT for some peace of mind.