18F-fluorothymidine PET is a potential predictive imaging biomarker of the response to gemcitabine-based chemotherapeutic treatment for recurrent ovarian cancer: preliminary results in three patients.

In order to establish early and precise methods for evaluating the effect of secondary chemotherapy in patients with recurrent ovarian cancer, both the clinical course of 3 women treated with gemcitabine-based secondary chemotherapy and the potential for early and accurate evaluation of the secondary chemotherapeutic effect of 18F-fluorothymidine (FLT) PET are reported. Standard uptake value with FLT PET decreased earlier than with 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose PET and was better correlated with a reduction in size as measured by CT. FLT PET could become a new standard for monitoring response to gemcitabine-based secondary chemotherapy treatment for recurrent ovarian cancer.