Mesonephroid tumours of the ovary

Our plain-English summary of Mesonephroid tumours of the ovary, by M.C. Anderson, F.A. Langley (Journal of Clinical Pathology, 1970).

The study

• Authors: M.C. Anderson, F.A. Langley
• Journal: Journal of Clinical Pathology
• Published: 1970;23(3):210-8
• Cited by: 30 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text

Abstract

Thirty cases of mesonephroid tumour of the ovary were studied. The differential diagnosis is discussed and it is concluded that mesonephroid tumours form a distinct entity. An attempt is made to correlate the histological appearance of the tumours with the clinical course and criteria are suggested which might be a guide to prognosis. Views on histogenesis are discussed but at present there seems insufficient evidence to justify any particular hypothesis.

In plain English

This study of mesonephroid tumours of the ovary, by pathologists in Manchester, does not concern asbestos. The authors re-examined sections from 39 cases previously diagnosed as mesonephroid tumours and accepted 30 ovarian tumours, from women aged 31 to 79. Full clinical information was available for 22 women, seen between 1954 and the end of 1967. Ten of them had died. The authors compared four women who died of ovarian carcinoma within two years with four who survived five years or more. Tumours from the long survivors tended to contain a lower proportion of epithelial cells. Papillary areas were present in all four early-death tumours but in only one long-survivor tumour. Stromal invasion, mitotic figures and similar features did not help in judging outlook. Setting aside one woman whose course radiotherapy may have changed, the authors concluded that in the more benign tumours epithelial cells made up less than 20% of the tissue and papillary areas were absent. They found the evidence on the tumours' origin inconclusive.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Pathology case series: re-examination of tissue sections, with clinical follow-up records reviewed
• Who was studied: Sections from 39 cases previously diagnosed as mesonephroid tumours were re-examined at St Mary's Hospitals, Manchester; 29 came from the hospital's routine work and 10 were referred from hospitals in the area. Seven were rejected as not meeting the diagnostic criteria, and one uterine and one cervical tumour were excluded. That left 30 ovarian mesonephroid tumours from women aged 31 to 79. Of these, 22, seen between 1954 and the end of 1967, had full clinical information and were studied in detail.
• Main results:
  • Ten of the 22 patients with full clinical information had died.
  • Four cases fell into group A (died within two years from ovarian carcinoma), four into group C (survived five years or more), and the remaining 14 into group B.
  • Apart from case 1, which had secondary deposits in the liver and lymph nodes, there seemed little difference in operative findings between groups A and C.
  • The volume of epithelium as a percentage of the whole tumour varied from 6% (case 5) to 55% (case 10). The mean for group C was significantly lower than the mean of all cases, while the group A mean was little higher than the mean of all cases, with some overlap between the groups. The authors took this to suggest that more benign tumours contain a lower proportion of epithelial cells.
  • Papillary areas were found in 15 of the 22 cases. They were present in all group A tumours but in only one group C case.
  • Mitotic figures were almost completely absent in groups A and C (one found, in case 4). The authors found that stromal invasion, multilayering, epithelial budding, variation in nuclear size and shape, and mitotic figures did not help in assessing prognosis.
  • In the mesonephroid tumours, mucin was found in the lumina of the tubules but not in the cells, and glycogen was found in the cells rather than the lumina. The glycogen was distributed as distinct particles, as in one of the endometrioid tumours.
  • Four of the 22 cases had endometriosis.
• The authors' conclusion: Leaving aside case 7, the authors concluded that in the more benign tumours epithelial cells make up less than 20% of the tissue and papillary areas are absent. They found the evidence on histogenesis inconclusive, but considered that the tumours form a morphologically distinct group.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • Full clinical information could not be obtained for eight of the 30 cases.
  • Most patients who died did not have necropsies, so the causes of death were partly assumed from clinical findings.
  • The authors' criteria for identifying mitotic figures may have been too rigorously drawn.
  • Because stromal invasion was so hard to identify, the authors could not establish whether a histologically borderline group exists.
  • Case 7 was treated with radiotherapy, which may have modified the course of the disease and placed the case in the long-survival group misleadingly.

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Ovarian cancer.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Differential Diagnosis, Prognosis.

Related studies

• Talc and carcinoma of the ovary and cervix — W.J. Henderson, C.A. Joslin, et al. (1971)
• Mesothelioma of the pelvic peritoneum resembling papillary cystadenocarcinoma of the ovary; case report — M. Swerdlow (1959)
• Expression of calretinin in human ovary, testis, and ovarian sex cord-stromal tumors — Q.J. Cao, J.G. Jones, et al. (2001)
• Keratins 7 and 20 as diagnostic markers of carcinomas metastatic to the ovary — C.C. Wauters, F. Smedts, et al. (1995)
• An ultrastructural comparison of mesotheliomas and adenocarcinomas of the ovary and endometrium — M.J. Warhol, N.J. Hunter, et al. (1982)
• Value of mesothelial and epithelial antibodies in distinguishing diffuse peritoneal mesothelioma in females from serous papillary carcinoma of the ovary and peritoneum — R.L. Attanoos, R. Webb, et al. (2002)

Browse more research in Journal of Clinical Pathology, or return to medical research.