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Review
. 2019 Sep 17;41(3).
doi: 10.1515/hmbci-2019-0022.

Ultrasound screening of ovarian cancer

Marcel Bäumler  1 , Delphine Gallant  2 , René Druckmann  3 , Walther Kuhn  4
Affiliations
Review

Ultrasound screening of ovarian cancer

Marcel Bäumler et al. Horm Mol Biol Clin Investig. .

Abstract

Ovarian cancer has a high mortality rate. The most common serous type spreads rapidly throughout the peritoneal cavity when 5-year survival is 10%. If diagnosed in earlier stages where the cancer is still confined to the ovary, this survival rate is about 90%. This is the reason to be interested in screening at earlier stages in the average-risk general population. Thus, annual transvaginal ultrasound (TVS) alone or as a multimodal screening test following serum carbohydrate antigen 125 (CA125) has been investigated. Ultrasound lacks sensitivity and specificity; new contrast-enhanced approaches might improve these. When the serum marker is combined with ultrasound and interpreted by a rise in the level rather than by a fixed cut-off, improved sensitivity and specificity and a late but not significant reduction in mortality are observed. Further investigations could highlight the interest of a shorter than annual screening, of a long-term follow-up and new contrast-enhanced ultrasound techniques.

Keywords: ovarian cancer; screening; ultrasound.

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