[Clinical aspects and morphology of extra-ovarian serous cancer of the pelvis]

An extraovarian peritoneal serous carcinoma is characterised macroscopically by ovaries without pathology, histologically, however, by a serous carcinomatous structure in the pelvis, in an advanced tumour stage of usually marked peritoneal carcinomatosis. Extraovarian pelvic serous carcinomas are rarely described in literature. In our study on five patients with such carcinomas, laparotomy findings revealed peritoneal carcinomatosis as in advanced ovarian carcinomas, but without ovarian involvement. Histogenesis does not reveal any difference between the extraovarian mesothel, which is of Mullerian origin and the serous ovarian carcinoma. Therapy of extraovarian peritoneal carcinoma is similar to that of ovarian cancer with maximal tumour reduction and cisplatinum or carboplatinum containing chemotherapy. The prognosis is extremely unfavourable with little expectation of lengthy remission and survival rates are short. Extraovarian serous carcinomas deserve better recognition because they are underreported. They must be differentiated from malignant mesotheliomas, which are not of Mullerian origin.