[Denny-Brown sensory neuropathy disclosing a bilateral ovarian adenocarcinoma]

The authors report the case of a 76 year-old woman examined because of occurrence of a paraneoplastic sensory neuropathy. Three months later, she developed a left inguinal adenopathy, metastasis of a bilateral ovarian adenocarcinoma. This case of particular interest in view of the way the neoplasm was discovered. The sensory neuropathy was previously reported to be associated with an ovarian cancer in only one case of the literature. Besides the tumor masse only limited to a left inguinal adenopathy, in this case emphasizes the ability of these rare metastasis. The ovarian cancer-associated antigen CA 125 is particularly useful for the diagnosis when high levels are found. In the absence of a pelvic tumor masse, the paraneoplastic sensory neuropathy, as well as the high levels of CA 125, have resulted in an exploratory laparotomy with extemporaneous examination of the ovaries, enabling to make the diagnosis of bilateral ovarian adenocarcinoma.