Ovarian cancer management. Practice guidelines for nuclear physicians.

Ovarian cancer is a frequent and severe malignancy. Over 75% of cases are diagnosed at an advanced stage with disease spread beyond the ovaries. Despite the high response rates of initial treatments (i.e., 70-80%), the median progression-free survival of advanced ovarian cancer is 16-22 months, and the 5-year overall survival, 20-30%. The majority of these patients relapse, with metastatic peritoneal spread, unresectable, or drug resistant disease. Our goal was to outline current knowledge about diagnosis, prognostic factors, and treatments, and to dwell on non-nuclear medicine and nuclear-medicine diagnostic procedures.