ABSTRACT
Ovarian metastases from extragenital malignant tumours. An anatomohistopathologic approach. 102 cases of ovarian metastases from extragenital malignant non hematopoietic primaries have been studied in the Institute of Anatomy and Histopathology of the Trieste University. Breast cancers, followed by colonic, gastric and pancreatic tumours are the most frequent spreading primaries to the ovaries. Generally speaking the ovarian metastases seems to be closely related to the lower age at the tumour onset and to the width of metastatic spreading; this is true mainly for breast and colorectal cancer. These features should suggest that tumour aggressiveness, rather than some tropism of malignant cells, could play the most important role in the metastatic involvement of ovaries. A double behaviour should be instead suggested for gastric cancer: the first one is consistent with those previously described for the other tumours, the second one is related to a less aggressive gastric cancer, arising in the elderly (mean age 73 years old) with isolated involvement of the ovary showing the features of Krukenberg tumours.