Clinical efficacy of FDG-PET scan in the patients with primary or recurrent gynecologic malignancies: clinical experiences with FDG-PET scan in cervical carcinoma of uterus

This study was done to evaluate the clinical feasibility of FDG-PET scan in patients with cervical carcinoma. PET-scans were performed in 74 patients with cervical carcinoma from March, 1998 to September, 1998. Fourteen cases were done at pretreatment period and sixty cases were done at post-treatment follow up period. In this study, the scans were obtained after bladder emptying by foley catheter insertion and diuretics to reduce the tracer activity in the bladder and improve the images of central lesions. We could find some incidental recurrent or metastatic lesions by FDG-PET scan (at pretreatment; 5 cases, at post-treatment; clinically no evidence of disease; 8 cases). FDG-PET scan had high sensitivity (100%) for central lesions and metastatic lymph nodes of cervical cancer but could not precisely define the anatomic location of the cancer and the sensitivity was not superior than MRI. Earlier detection of metastatic lymph nodes was superior than CT/MRI (sensitivity; 100 %) for metastatic lymph nodes. Also we found 3 double primary cancers incidentally (2 lung cancers and 1 thyroid cancer). In conclusion, FDG-FET scan might be useful for the earlier of hidden lesions that cannot be detected by routine conventional methods and differential diagnosis with radiation fibrosis and benign lymph adenophy