Synchronous primary neoplasms of the female reproductive tract

A histopathologic review of synchronous primary neoplasms of the female reproductive tract is presented. During a 30-year period, 3863 patients with female genital malignancies were accessioned to the UCLA Tumor Registry: 958 had ovarian cancer, 776 endometrial cancer, 1556 cervical cancer, and 573 other gynecologic malignancies. Twenty-six (0.7%) patients with invasive synchronous primary cancers were identified. The most frequent synchronous genital lesions were ovarian and endometrial cancers in 11 patients (0.3%). No association was documented between genital and extragenital cancers. Patients with synchronous ovarian and endometrial cancers each were low stage and low grade, and the prognosis was excellent. Their detection in a relatively early stage suggests diagnosis may be facilitated by early symptoms from the endometrial carcinoma, and that these lesions are biologically of relatively low grade. These data support the conclusion that there is an association between low-stage epithelial carcinoma of the ovary and endometrial carcinoma.