A Comparison Between Ultrasound, CT (CT) and Whole-body Diffusion-weighted MRI (WB-DWI/MRI) in the Assessment of Operability in Patients With Ovarian Cancer

Patients with abdominal or pelvic mass suspicious of primary ovarian, tubal or peritoneal cancer using subjective assessment by experienced sonographer (principal investigator) will be enrolled in the study and send to surgical planning. During surgical planning, the CT and MRI will be scheduled and the patient ́s consent will be requested if inclusion criteria are fulfilled. Please note, tumors with atypical morphology and/or tumor spread suspicious for secondary ovarian cancer will be first subjected to a tru-cut biopsy and will be included if histopathology confirms adnexal or peritoneal cancer.

Ultrasound will be always performed by the principal investigator in each center. Principal investigator is an ultrasound expert with level II or III EFSUMB accreditation (http://www.efsumb.org/). Operators performing ultrasound scan and radiologists performing CT or MRI will be well instructed and educated about standardized approach and criteria of inoperability. Sonographers and radiologists will be blinded to the results of other imaging modalities. If a patient already had CT or WB-DWI/MRI done by the referring hospital, the study radiologists will decide about the quality of imaging and necessity to repeat CT or WB-DWI/MRI.

The decision to treat by PDS (primary debulking surgery), or by NACT (neoadjuvant chemotherapy) with IDS (interval debulking surgery) will be based on departmental guidelines taking into account medical comorbidities and disease-related factors. If a patient is indicated for NACT a tru-cut biopsy or/and a diagnostic laparoscopy are performed. The clinicians will document why the primary debulking surgery was not considered. The surgery (laparoscopy, primary or interval debulking surgery) should always be performed within four weeks after the index test. Patients without surgical exploration will be excluded.

Surgeons performing laparoscopy will describe site to site involvement and in case of inoperability will take a biopsy and document reasons for abandoning laparotomy. In operable cases surgeons performing laparotomy will describe site to site involvement and where applicable reasons for not achieving optimal cytoreduction defined as no residual tumor left in situ at the end of surgery (R0).

If the patient has only ultrasound and CT (and not WB-DWI/MRI) she can still be included in the study. Similarly if the patient undergoes interval debulking surgery she can be included in the study if the index tests will be performed less than 4 week before IDS.