Objective: The aim is to investigate the uterine uptake that may be caused by physiologic and/or benign reasons during fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglu-cose (18F-FDG ) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET-CT) examination and the factors affecting it.

Material and Method: A total number of 16 patients with high uterine 18F-FDG uptake, who had not undergone surgery and who had a PET-CT scan due to reasons other than gynecologic oncology were included in the study. Ten of them were in the premenopausal period. All patients were examined with pelvic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Results: Of the total 16 patients with high uterine 18F -FDG uptake, uterine leiomyoma was detected in 13 of the patients, whereas there was not any sign of pelvic pathology in 3 of the patients. It was understood that the patients who were not diagnosed with pelvic pathology, had received PET-CT scan during their menstruation period. Mean SUVmax value of the 13 patients with leiomyoma was 5.41. It was determined by the statistical analysis that there is no correlation between SUVmax value and the parameters such as age, menopausal status, serum LDH level, diameter of myoma, single or multiple status of the myomas and administration of tamoxifen. Mean SUVmax values of 3 patients with detected menstruation-related uterine 18F-FDG uptake was 7.3.

Conclusion: It should be kept in mind that especially in premenopausal period, uterin 18F-FDG uptake which is incidentally detected during PET-CT may be related to menstruation or benign pathologies after excluding malignant processes.