A Clinical and Histopathological Study of the Epithelial Ovarian Cancer

Of all the gynecologic cancers, ovarian malignancies represent the greatest clinical hallenge. Epithelial ovarian cancer are the most common ovarian malignancies and because they are usually asymptomatic until they have metastasized, patients present with advanced disease on morethan ⅔ of the cases.

The author have studied forth-five cases of epithelial ovarian cancers in sixty-one cases ofmalignant ovarian tumors from january 1985 through october, 31, 1995.

The result of this study were summarized as follows:

1) Among 245 cases of the ovarian tumors, malignant ovarian tumors were 61 cases (24.89%)and of which 45 cases (73.8%) were epithelial origins and of which 6 cases (9.8%) were metastatic origins.

2) The prevalent age group of the epithelial ovarian cancer was 4th decade and mean agewas 45.1±17.6 years.

3) The clinical manifestations were palpable abdominal mass, 19 cases (42.4%), lower abdominal discomfort or pain, 15 cases (33.3%), abdominal distension, 11 cases (24.4%), menstrual irregularities, 3 cases (6.7%), weight loss, 1 case (2.2%) and urinary frequancy, 1 case (2.2%).

4) Among 45 cases of epithelial ovarian cancer, mucinous cyst adenocarcinoma 21 cases (46.6%) were the most common and followed by serous cystadenoracinoma 17 cases (37.7%), endometrioid adeno carcinoma 3 cases (6.7%), malignant Brenner tumer 2 cases (4.4%), clear cellcarcinomas 1 case (2.2%), and undifferentiated carcinmas 1 case (2.2%).

5) Mean size of tumors was 14±6.78cm in diameter, bilaterality of the tumors was 22.2%.

6) The most surgical treatment were total abdominal hysterectomy, bilateral salpingoophorectomy, omentectomy and debulking tumors resection 24 cases (53.3%), but unilaterat salpingo-oophorectomy was the freqnent method of surgery 14 cases (31.1%) due to under diagnosis of the tumors and preservation of fertility in cases of no gross malignant lesions.

7) For clinical stages, stage 1 was 23 cases (51.1%), stage II was 4 cases (8.88%), stage III was 7 cases (15.5%) and stage IV was 9 cases (20%).

8) Cytology of the ascites or peritoneal washing revealed that class I and class II were 12cases (57.1%) and more than class IV were 9 cases (42.9%).