Positron emission tomography for detecting clinically occult surgically resectable metastatic ovarian cancer

The specific indications for PET imaging in patients with ovarian cancer have yet to be precisely defined. While PET has limited sensitivity for detecting small-volume (<1 cm) metastatic disease, accurate identification of larger tumor nodules may have a significant impact on clinical management and the selection of patients for cytoreductive surgery.

The cases of two patients with suspected recurrent Stage IIIC serous ovarian cancer based solely on elevated CA125 levels and one patient with an apparent Stage IC poorly differentiated ovarian sex cord-stromal tumor who had macroscopic surgically resectable disease (>1 cm) identified by PET after negative or equivocal computed tomography are presented.

PET imaging may be a useful technique for identifying potentially surgically resectable, macroscopic metastatic ovarian cancer when computed tomography findings are negative or equivocal.