ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate clinicopathological features of endometriosis-associated epithelial ovarian carcinoma.Methods Retrospective follow-up study,clinicopathological data from patients with ovarian epithelial carcinoma were retrieved,analyzed and compared.Among the 727 cases,34 were found to originate from endometriosis (group A),33 were found to have co-existing ovarian endometriosis (group B),and the remaining 660 had no ovarian endometriosis at all (group C).Result Seven hundred and twenty-seven epithelial ovarian carcinoma patients were identified and their ehnicopathological data retrieved.Sixty-seven (9.2%) of these cases were found to have coexisting endometriosis.The frequency of malignant tumors arising from ovarian endometriosis in this case series was estimated to be 0.87% (34/3890).The mean (standard deviation) age in groups A,B,and C were(47.2±1.3),(47.8±1.2),(51.2±0.4) years,respectively,with patients in group C being significantly older (P = 0.013).Patients with coexisting ovarian endometriosis were mostly diagnosed at stage Ⅰ (P = 0.000)and having subtype of clear-cell (P =0.000),while other patients were mostly diagnosed at stage Ⅲ (P =0.001),and having subtype of serous carcinoma (P =0.000).The estrogen receptor (ER) positivity was significantly lower in groups A and B than that in group C (22.2%,31.6% vs 43.9%;P =0.018),but the difference in positivity of progestogen receptor among the three groups did not reach statistical significance (22.2%,15.8% vs 35.5%;P =0.082).While the five-year overall survival rate for all patients was 55.6%,significant difference in overall survival among the three groups was found 78.9%,92.8%,51.9%,respectively,for groups A,B and C (P =0.000).Conclusion Patients of endometriosis-associated epithelial ovarian carcinoma,especially patients with tumors arising from endometriosis,were found to be younger,having a significant lower stage and a better survival,and were mostly diagnosed with the subtype of clear-cell.