Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer is one of the most common tumors in women. Because of the Pap test, overall deaths due to cervical cancer have declined because physicians find the cancer at an early stage. Early stage cervical cancer can be successfully treated with surgery, radiation and/or chemotherapy but its important that physicians get accurate information from a PET image on where cancer has spread before managing the patients' treatment.

Whole-body FDG-PET is a sensitive and specific tool for the detection of recurrent cervical cancer in patients who have clinical findings suspicious for recurrence. The sensitivity and specificity of FDG-PET for detecting recurrent cervical cancer are 85.7 and 86.7%, respectively. The positive and negative predictive values are 85.7 and 86.7%, respectively.

In January 2005 the Center for Medicare services (CMS) approved coverage of FDG-PET for staging of cervical cancer patients and additional coverage is available through the National Oncologic PET Registry (NOPR).

Reference: Gynecol Oncol 2003 Jul, 90(1):186-90..