Struma ovarii.

OBJECTIVE

To review the clinicopathological experience of patients with benign and malignant struma ovarii.

METHOD

A retrospective institutional analysis of 2 patients with malignant and 14 patients with benign struma ovarii, treated during a period of 20 years.

RESULT

The patients with struma ovarii constituted 1.0% of all ovarian neoplasms in our institution (16/1501). Four percent of the germ cell tumors were calculated to be of struma ovarii (16/382). The stages of the malignant cases were recorded as 1A and 1C. Besides detection at early stage, a biologically low grade tumor was encountered as well. Although 5 of the patients had goitre, none of them had hyperthyroidism. None of the patients had a bilateral tumor. However, in 2 patients, a serous cystadenoma and dermoid cyst were found in the contralateral ovaries. The preoperative and intraoperative diagnosis of malignant struma ovarii proved to be difficult since 2 patients subjected to radical surgery according to suspicious frozen section reports in this series later were found to be benign struma ovarii.

CONCLUSION

The low metastatic potential and slow progression rate of malignant struma ovarii support conservative surgery especially in young patients who have not yet completed their families.