The characteristic ultrasound features of specific types of ovarian pathology (Review)

Ahmad Sayasneh, Christine Ekechi, Laura Ferrara, Jeroen Kaijser, J. Kaijser, C. Stalder, Catriona Stalder, Shyamaly Sur, S. Sur, Dirk Timmerman, D. Timmerman, T. Bourne, Tom Bourne
International journal of oncology · 2014 · vol. 46(2) , pp. 445–458 · doi:10.3892/ijo.2014.2764 · PMID:25406094 · PMC4277251 · W2004495636
review OA: gold CC0 ⤵ 14 in-corpus citations
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⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-09 ⓘ

This review describes typical ultrasound morphological features of various adnexal masses to aid in predicting specific ovarian pathology and guide management.

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⚙ AI-generated deep summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-09 ⓘ

This narrative review describes how transvaginal ultrasonography pattern recognition and specific gray-scale and Doppler features can be used to characterize common adnexal and ovarian pathologies, with representative images and a focus on distinguishing benign from malignant disease. It summarizes evidence that, in experienced hands, subjective pattern recognition has high sensitivity and specificity for several entities including endometriomas, while it is less reliable for others such as fibromas and differentiating physiological from other simple cysts on a single scan. The review emphasizes that ultrasound findings must be correlated with clinical history and symptoms, and it notes limitations where diagnostic performance is poor or lesions can overlap in appearance. Relevance to endometriosis: the paper directly details ultrasound features used to identify endometriomas (and discusses peritoneal pseudocysts that can be caused by endometriosis), though its main focus is a broad review of characteristic ultrasound findings across multiple ovarian pathologies.

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Abstract

Characterizing ovarian masses enables patients with malignancy to be appropriately triaged for treatment by subspecialist gynecological oncologists, which has been shown to optimize care and improve survival. Furthermore, correctly classifying benign masses facilitates the selection of patients with ovarian pathology that may either not require intervention, or be suitable for minimal access surgery if intervention is required. However, predicting whether a mass is benign or malignant is not the only clinically relevant information that we need to know before deciding on appropriate treatment. Knowing the specific histology of a mass is becoming of increasing importance as management options become more tailored to the individual patient. For example predicting a mucinous borderline tumor gives the opportunity for fertility sparing surgery, and will highlight the need for further gastrointestinal assessment. For benign disease, predicting the presence of an endometrioma and possible deeply infiltrating endometriosis is important when considering both who should perform and the extent of surgery. An examiner's subjective assessment of the morphological and vascular features of a mass using ultrasonography has been shown to be highly effective for predicting whether a mass is benign or malignant. Many masses also have features that enable a reliable diagnosis of the specific pathology of a particular mass to be made. In this narrative review we aim to describe the typical morphological features seen on ultrasound of different adnexal masses and illustrate these by showing representative ultrasound images.

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Condition tags

endometriosisendometrioma

MeSH descriptors

Cystadenoma, Mucinous Cystadenoma, Serous Ovarian Neoplasms Peritoneal Neoplasms Adnexal Diseases Adnexal Diseases Adnexal Diseases Cystadenoma, Mucinous Cystadenoma, Mucinous Cystadenoma, Serous Cystadenoma, Serous Diagnosis, Differential Female Follicular Cyst Follicular Cyst Follicular Cyst Humans Ovarian Cysts Ovarian Cysts Ovarian Cysts

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

References (52)

Cited by (14)

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License: CC0 · commercial use OK