A clinical study on gestational trophoblastic disease / 부인종양

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the clinical characteristics and the outcome of the management for gestational trophoblastic disease (GTD) patients diagnosed at our hospital and to report the current situation of GTD in Korea. METHODS: Between January, 1991, and December, 2000, One hundred and eleven women were diagnosed as GTD and managed in our hospital. Patients were classified according to clinical diagnosis and their medical records were investigated. RESULTS: Cases of benign, malignant nonmetastatic, malignant metastatic low risk and malignant metastatic high risk GTDs were 62, 36, 2 and 11 respectively. The mean age (year), gravidity and parity (number) of GTD patients were 33.3+/-9.9 (range: 19-54), 3.2+/-3.0 (range: 0-16) and 1.7+/-1.8 (range: 0-7) overall. About 75% of GTD patients were women in their 20s and 30s, and 85% occurred in patients with parity of 3 or less. The most common prior gestational event was abortion (37.1%) for molar pregnancy and molar pregnancy (61.2%) for persistent gestational trophoblastic tumor (PGTT). The progression rate of molar pregnancies to PGTT was 38.0%. MTX (16.3%) was mainly used as a single agent, and EMACO (28.6%) or MAC (22.4%) were primarily used for multidrug chemotherapy for the treatment of PGTT. In the treatment of PGTT, overall remission rate was 95.9% (n=47/49). CONCLUSION: The trends for GTD in Korea revealed significant changes, not only a decrease in the incidence of GTD, but also an improvement in the outcome of the management. There is a necessity of further community-based surveys for GTD.

Cavernous Hemangioma of Clitoris and Clitoral Hood / 대한산부인과학회잡지

Although hemangioma is not infrequent among gynecological patients, misdiagnosis is possible in clitoral hemangioma because of it's anatomical location and the shape. It is difficult to consider hemangioma rather than another disease as the cause of clitoral enlargement. To our knowledge, there are only 2 reported cases with clitoral involvement of hemangioma in the literature and we report first in Korea. Here we describe a patient with a large and ulcerative clitoral hemangioma, who recovered completely after a simple treatment.

Laparoscopic versus Laparotomic Management of Adnexal Tumor before Week 18 of Pregnancy / 대한산부인과학회잡지

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the safety and benefit of laparoscopic surgery compared with laparotomy for the management of adnexal tumor during pregnancy. METHODS: We reviewed 54 cases of adnexal tumor during pregnancy which were managed surgically at Chonbuk National University Hospital between January 1996 and July 2002. Laparoscopy was performed in 17 patients. The remaining 37 patients had laparotomy. The medical records were reviewed retrospectively to confirm variable factors, such as gestational age, operating time, surgical methods, pathologic results, and pregnancy outcomes and complications. RESULTS: Mean gestational age at surgery was significantly different between two groups (85.2 vs 103.0 days). Operating time was not significantly different between two groups. Hospital stay (4.6 vs 7.0 days) was significantly shorter in the laparoscopy group than laparotomy group. No operative or postoperative maternal complications occured in the pregnant women who had laparoscopic surgery. Five preterm deliveries and one intrauterine fetal death occured in the laparotomy group. CONCLUSION: Comparing with laparotomy, laparoscopic surgery allows a shorter hospital stay, a reduced rate of postoperative complications and a maternal and fetal morbidity compared. Laparoscopic surgery appears to be safe and effective during pregnancy.