Clinicopathological Analysis of 358 Ovarian Tumors from a Sub-Saharan African Country.
AI interpretation is pending for this paper.
Open original publication →What the AI sees
Not AI summarized yet.
Research significance
Pending deeper interpretation.
Source abstract
INTRODUCTION: Ovarian tumors are classified into 4 main groups: epithelial tumors, germ cell tumors (GCT), sex cord-stromal tumors (SCST) and metastatic tumors. Their clinicopathological features and biological behavior vary largely across age groups and World regions. METHODS: We retrospectively collected 358 cases of ovarian tumors diagnosed at our Pathology service in a tertiary care hospital (February 2020 - March 2024). We performed statistical comparison between clinical and histopathological groups (Student's t-test, Fisher exact and chi-square tests). We also performed logistic regression analysis to identify clinicopathological factors associated with malignancy in ovarian tumors (using odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI)). RESULTS: The mean age was 37.1 years ± 15.9 (range of 4-81 years), with 38 cases (10.7%) from pediatric patients. Epithelial tumors and GCT were the most frequent tumors representing 52% and 34.6%, respectively. The majority of ovarian tumors were benign (283 cases, 79.1%) with 72 ovarian cancers (20.1%), representing 41.1% of all gynecological tract malignancies diagnosed at our department. Patients with adnexal torsions were younger than those without torsion and had larger cystic, left-sided tumors (p<0.05), irrespective of biological behavior (p˃0.05). Ovarian cancer was often found in older and post-menopausal women (mean ages of 48.35±16.56 years versus 34.2±14.40 years; 58.8% versus 15.7%; p<0.001). Ovarian malignant tumors were more often larger and heterogenous with mixed macroscopic aspect (mean size of 17.73±11.46 versus 13.40±8.71 cm; p=0.006; 56.9% versus 9.9%; p<0.001). The epithelial histological differentiation (OR = 5.08, 95% CI = 2.12-12.17, p<0.001) and the solid/mixed gross feature (OR = 36.93, 95% CI =14.91-91.47, p<0.001) were significantly associated with tumor malignancy. CONCLUSION: We found that the clinicopathological features of ovarian tumors vary widely according to age groups, macroscopic aspects and histological differentiation. Ovarian cancer is often found in post-menopausal women with larger and heterogenous tumors compared to patients with benign tumors.