To compare the diagnostic performance of routine CT (rCT), CT enterography (CTE) and intraoperative quantification of PCI to surgical and pathological reference standards in patients with advanced ovarian cancer, a retrospective study of 122 patients who underwent cytoreduction surgery for ovarian peritoneal carcinomatosis was conducted. Radiological, surgical, and pathological PCIs were obtained from the corresponding reports, and the latter two were considered reference standards. The radiological techniques used were rCT: 64 MDCT (32 × 1 mm) (100 mL iopromide 370 i.v., 800 mL water p.o.), and CTE: 64 MDCT (64 × 0.5 mm) (130 mL iopromide 370 i.v., 1800 mL mannitol solution p.o., 20 mg buscopan i.v.). Data were grouped by imaging technique and analyzed using total PCI and stratified by tumor burden (low-PCI < 10, high-PCI > 20). Agreement, diagnostic performance and degree of cytoreduction were evaluated. Disappointing results for rCT and CTE were obtained when using a surgical referent, but better diagnostic performance and concordance (0.86 vs. 0.78 vs. 0.62, p < 0.05) was observed when using a pathological referent-surgical PCI overestimates and overstaged patients. PCI is underestimated by rCT rather than CTE. For high-PCI, the ROC curve was mediocre for CTE and useless for rCT, as it failed to identify any cases. For low-PCI, the ROC was excellent (86% CTE vs. 75% rCT). In four cases with low-PCI as determined by rCT, cytoreduction was suboptimal. CTE has a better diagnostic performance than rCT in quantifying PCI in patients with advanced ovarian cancer, suggesting that CTE should be used as the initial technique. Surgical-PCI could be considered as an imperfect standard reference.
Keywords: CT enterography; MDCT; PCI; ovarian cancer; peritoneal carcinomatosis.