The diagnosis of ovarian cancer remains a challenge for the specialists in medical imaging. The evolution is quite obvious with clinical symptoms only present at an advanced stage. An accurate diagnosis in early stages should improve the patients outcome. 2D echography is a standard procedure in the management of an ovarian mass. 3D or contrast-enhanced power Doppler ultrasonography seem to improve the echography accuracy in the diagnosis of ovarian cancer. HistoScanning™ is an innovative software technology complementary to 3D ultrasound imaging systems. The core of HistoScanning™ technology consists in a mathematical algorithm able to separate the ultrasound echoes reflected by malignant and nonmalignant ovarian tissues. This new tool seems to improve the specificity of echography, but it remains in the research field. In clinical oncology, positron emission tomography (PET) is performed after the injection of a glucose analog, 18 FDG, which accumulates in the cancerous cells. 18 FDG TEP is not useful for the characterization of the ovarian mass and does not avoid the second-look surgery following adjuvant chemotherapy. However, PET is highly accurate for the diagnosis of early recurrence, in particular when blood markers are increasing without any abnormality on conventional imaging. The ability of PET for the assessment of the therapeutic response requires further validation studies.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.