Ovarian carcinoma is the fourth leading cause of death from cancer in women. Little is known about the potential contribution that PET scanning and MRI have to make in the helping to diagnose and stage this disease. The purpose of this project is to prospectively test MRI,CT,2d-FDG PET scanning and ultrasound (transvaginal and transabdominal) for their respective sensitivity and specificity for the diagnosis and staging of ovarian carcinoma. Over a three year period, we expect to recruit 25 patients a year for this protocol (total-75 patients). Each patient will have ultrasound evidence for a cyst that does not meet benign criterion, and thus, is suspicious for an ovarian malignancy and will need to be surgically removed. Transvaginal ultrasound, dynamic CT, high resolution MRI using multicoils with fast spin echo imaging, and 2-fluorodeoxyglucose PET scanning will be performed in each one of these patients. We will determine the sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive value of each test for diagnosing malignant disease. Receiver operator characteristic curves for each of the studies for four radiologists blinded to the results of the surgical pathology will be generated and their areas will be compared. From an expected sample size of 75 patients, we will have sufficient sensitivity to detect a 15% difference in accuracy between these diagnostic tests.
