Four synchronous female genital malignancies: the ovary, cervix, endometrium and fallopian tube.

OBJECTIVE

To present a unique case of a 63 year-old woman with coexistent adenocarcinoma of the ovary, endometrium, cervix and fallopian tube.

MATERIALS AND

METHODS

A case report from a tertiary health center.

RESULTS

A woman presenting with postmenopausal bleeding and abdominal distantion was assessed by endometrial biopsy and explorative surgery. The frozen section of the mass on the right adnex revealed malign mucinous carcinoma of the ovary. As usual, optimal debulking was performed as initial surgical staging procedure of ovarian cancer. The microscopic examination of the right ovary revealed a typical mucinous cystadenocarcinoma. Furthermore, the focal endometrial irregularity at the left uterine cornus turned out to be a well differentiated endometrial carcinoma of the endometrioid type with <1/3 myometrial invasion. The pale infiltrative lesion in the cervix also turned out to be an adenocarcinoma of the endocervical type with deep stromal invasion and areas of diffuse glandular dysplasia and in-situ glandular neoplasia at the periphery. Besides, several sections from the left fallopian tube uncovered diffuse dysplasia in the lining epithelium and a focus of adenocarcinoma with papillary and cribriform pattern.

DISCUSSION: When compared with patients having metastatic lesions, most synchronous female malignancies are accompanied with early stage and low-grade with a more favorable prognosis. However, there is paucity of data for the exact criterion to distinguish primary tumors from metastatic lesions. In such cases, the validity of immunohistochemical and cloning studies are not clear.