Transvaginal ultrasound - noninvasive method for the prediction of response to concurrent chemoradiotherapy in cases of cervical cancer

The objective of this paper is to study the differences in tumor size, color score and Doppler indices prior, during and after the treatment with concurrent chemoradiotherapy in cases of locally advanced cervical carcinoma and to predict the response to the treatment. The study group comprised fifty-two patients with histologically confirmed invasive carcinoma of the cervix. All patients were scheduled for concurrent chemoradiotherapy and were assessed by transvaginal ultrasound before the initiation, before 4th course of chemotherapy and 3 months after the therapy. Maximum cervical tumor length, anterior-posterior diameter and width have been measured and tumor volume was calculated. Complete clinical response (CR) was defined when no residual tumor was found. Partial clinical response (PR) was determined when the tumor volume had decreased more than 50 %. Intratumoral blood flow was subjectively evaluated by Color Doppler examination, the lowest resistance index (RI) and the highest peak systolic velocity (PSV) were used for the analysis. The results of this study demonstrate that transvaginal ultrasound is a valuable non-invasive diagnostic tool for the assessment of the response to concurrent chemoradiotherapy in cases of advanced cervical cancer

European Consensus Statement on Expert Colposcopy

Peer reviewedPublisher PD