Cellularity of the ovarian stroma in patients with endometrial carcinoma

Cellularity of the ovarian stroma was determined morphometrically in 124 patients with endometrial carcinoma and was correlated with histologic and clinical features of the neoplasm. High cellularity of the ovarian stroma was found to be significantly associated with poor histologic differentiation of the tumor. There was a correlation between patient age and the degree of differentiation and depth of myometrial invasion of the tumor, whereas age did not correlate with clinical stage of the carcinoma or with cellularity of the ovary. Since the ovarian stroma produces androgens, which after peripheral conversion may exhibit estrogenic activity, hyperplasia of the ovarian stroma may contribute not only to the development of well-differentiated endometrial carcinomas, but also to that of poorly differentiated carcinomas. So far, the latter have been considered mostly unrelated to estrogenic influence.