[Rare forms of ovarian tumor].

The most frequent ovarian tumour is cancer of the superficial epithelial layer. Sex cord mesenchymal tumours, lipoid cell tumours, germ cell tumours, gonadoblastomas, non-specific soft tissue tumours and metastatic tumours are rare. All these tumours are dissimilar, but they can be distinguished from the common ovarian adenocarcinoma by certain characteristics. It is among these rare tumours that cancers with feminizing effect (granula and theca cell tumours) or masculinizing effects (lipoid cell tumours, androblastomas) can be found. These tumours often affect children or young subjects; they are more belatedly and more rarely bilateral and they raise the problem of the conservative treatment of ovarian and reproductive functions. Among them, granula cell tumours sometimes recur after a long period, dysgerminoma is radio-sensitive and of good prognosis, and the prognosis of non-seminoma tumours has been much improved by chemotherapy. Most metastatic tumours are consecutive to endometrial, mammary or gastrointestinal cancer, the latter being the usual origin of Krukenberg's tumour.