Superior diagnostic performance of computed tomography over abdominal ultrasound for ovarian cancer detection.

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the clinical use of computed tomography (CT) in diagnosis of ovarian cancer.

Methods: This retrospective study included 120 patients diagnosed with ovarian cancer between January 2021 and June 2024. All patients underwent both abdominal ultrasound and computed tomography (CT) examinations. Diagnostic performance, including sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), and overall accuracy, were compared between the two modalities.

Results: CT demonstrated superior diagnostic performance compared to abdominal ultrasound in all evaluated criteria. Specifically, CT exhibited higher sensitivity, specificity, PPV, and NPV. In addition, CT demonstrated superior performance for assessing tumor characteristics, a solid component, peritoneal involvement, lymph node metastasis, tumor vascularity, metastasis, and ovarian cystic lesions. Statistically significant differences were observed in the diagnostic accuracy for both early- and advanced-stages of ovarian cancer, highlighting CT's ability to deliver more accurate, reliable, and comprehensive information compared to ultrasound.

Conclusion: CT outperformed abdominal ultrasound in diagnosing ovarian cancer, demonstrating superior sensitivity, specificity, and definition of tumor characteristics, metastasis, peritoneal involvement, and lymph node detection.