NONINVASIVE MONITORING OF OVARIAN-CANCER - IMPROVED RESULTS USING CT WITH INTRAPERITONEAL CONTRAST COMBINED WITH IMMUNOCYTOLOGY

The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether CT with intraperiton eal contrast (ipc/CT) in combination with immunocytochemical (ICC) tes ts could improve the diagnostic accuracy over conventional methods in the follow-up of ovarian carcinoma. Forty-five clinically disease-free ovarian cancer patients eligible for a second-look laparotomy were gi ven an intraperitoneal infusion of positive contrast material followed by pelvic and abdominal CT. After the radiographic examination, the c ontrast fluid was collected by paracentesis and processed for morpholo gical as well as for immunocytochemical analysis employing a panel of monoclonal antibodies identifying distinct ovarian tumor-associated an tigens. While ipc/CT correctly detected the presence of peritoneal rec urrences in 22 of 45 (49%) patients, the immunocytochemical tests demo nstrated the presence of otherwise undiagnosed microscopic disease in an additional 8 patients (18%). Our results demonstrate that the combi nation of radiological and immunological methods may represent a more accurate, noninvasive means of monitoring ovarian cancer, thus reducin g the need for a second-look laparotomy. (C) 1994 Academic Press, Inc.