UICC World Cancer Congress 2006

Methods:In the present study, we reviewed the medical records of 21 patients (mean age 43.2 ± 9.8 years) who had been previously treated for cervical carcinoma. All these women underwent a total of 25 examinations with whole-body FDG-PET scans for detection of local and distant recurrent disease. FDG-PET scans were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively by drawing regions of interest over the lesion showing abnormal FDG uptake. All studies were reviewed independently by two nuclear medicine physicians and then the results were correlated with surgical pathology, biopsy results, and/or clinical follow up to assess the accuracy of FDG-PET in evaluating local and distant disease.

Results:Recurrent disease was detected in 17 (81%) symptomatic patients. Of the 17 patients, 4(24%) had abnormal FDG uptake in cervical (local recurrence) region only, 6 (35%) patients had pelvic diseases, 6 (35%) patients, had disease outside the pelvis. One patient had false positive result, which showed lesion in lumber vertebra. All the 4 patients with negative findings by PET scan were found to have no recurrence confirmed by clinical examination, biopsy, or CT. The sensitivity and specificity of PET scan for detection of local and distant recurrent disease in symptomatic cervical cancer patients was 100% and 80%, respectively.

Conclusion: The FDG-PET is a useful technique to detect local and distant recurrent disease in symptomatic patients with cervical cancer.