Ovarian tumors in children: 10‑year experience from a tertiary care center in South India.

BACKGROUND: Ovarian tumors are uncommon in childhood and constitute around 1% of childhood malignancies. Two thirds of pediatric ovarian tumors are germ cell tumors. Epithelial ovarian tumors and stromal tumors are less frequent. We share our experience in childhood ovarian cancers, analyzing a series of cases with respect to the clinical profile, treatment and survival. METHODS: All newly diagnosed ovarian tumors in children up to 14 years of age, registered in our Pediatric Oncology Division between January 2000 and December 2009 were retrospectively reviewed. OBSERVATIONS: There were 47 patients with newly diagnosed ovarian tumors. The mean age at presentation was 10.0 ± 3.4 years. The most common symptoms at presentation were acute abdominal pain (48.9%) and abdominal mass (40.4%). Precocious puberty was uncommon (6.3%). Histology was germ cell tumors in 44 cases and nongerm cell tumors in three cases. The benign teratomas (mature and immature grade 1 and 2; n=9) underwent complete surgical resection alone; none had recurrence on follow up. Of the remaining 35 GCTs, 31 patients were given chemotherapy and 4 refused treatment.26 out of the 31 patients completed chemotherapy with BEP (bleomycin, etoposide, cisplatin) regimen with acceptable toxicities. 5 children i.e.; (19.2%) developed recurrence. At a median follow up of 80 months, 10 year disease free survival was 80.8 ± 7.7% and 10 year overall survival was 92.7 ± 4.9%. CONCLUSION: Germ cell tumors are the most common ovarian malignancy in children. With surgery and chemotherapy using BEP, good outcome can be expected in these patients.

Blastocystis hominis infection, a cause of human diarrhea.

Blastocystis hominis has long been described as a non pathogenic protozoan parasite until recently when claims have been made that it can result in pathogenic conditions. Of the 729 stool samples (614 from survey and 115 from pediatric wards) examined, 18.1% of them were found to be positive for one or more intestinal protozoan cyst. The commonest was Giardia intestinalis (8.4%) Followed by Entamoeba coli (7.1%) and Entamoeba histolytica (5.1%) in the normal children without symptoms of diarrhea. When diarrheic stools were examined, the commonest parasite encountered was Giardia (20.4%), followed by E. coli (15.9%) and E. histolytica (9.7%). Blastocystis was observed in 4.4% of the children who had diarrhea and 1.1% among the children taken from the normal population in the rural areas.