ESMO Patients Guide
What happens after my treatment has finished? Follow-up appointments
You will be able to discuss any concerns you have at your follow-up appointments
After your treatment has finished, your doctor will arrange follow-up appointments. During these appointments, you will typically have a clinical examination, a CT scan, and a blood test to measure levels of a substance called CA 125. In certain cases (usually when initial assessments are conflicting or unclear), a special scan called a positron emission tomography (PET)-CT scan may be also be used. Based on your results, your doctor will let you know how often you need to return for further follow-up appointments. What if I need more treatment? Cancer that comes back is called a recurrence. The treatment that you will be offered depends on the extent of the recurrence. When the tumour comes back as a recurrence at a single site, you may be offered further surgery followed by chemotherapy. Recurrent tumours are normally regarded as metastatic cancers and you can usually have further chemotherapy, and this may include different drugs to those you were treated with when you were first diagnosed. Sometimes, targeted therapy drugs are given with chemotherapy (see section ‘Treatment for locally advanced and metastatic epithelial ovarian cancer’ for more information).
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