Emergency surgery in gestational trophoblastic tumours.

The prognosis in patients with placental tumours, invasive mole or choriocarcinoma, is excellent. Chemotherapy offers, in the majority of cases, complete cure with preservation of fertility. However, surgery still plays a role in this group of diseases. Elective surgery aiming at curing the patient plays a minor but definitive role in selected patients. This study discusses emergency surgical procedures. In 92 patients treated because of gestational trophoblastic neoplasia at one institution 10 patients (11%) were subjected to invasive surgery, for the most part because of life threatening haemorrhage.