Ovarian germ cell tumor evolving to myelodysplasia

We present the case of a 14-year-old girl in whom a myelodysplastic syndrome was diagnosed 9 months after surgical resection and chemotherapy for an ovarian germ cell tumor. Cells from her marrow were characterized by trisomy 8 and an isochromosome 12p, a marker that appears to be unique to germ cell tumors. The presence of the same two anomalies in her original tumor was demonstrated by fluorescence in situ hybridization study of interphase cells in paraffin-embedded tissues and thus provided strong evidence that the two neoplasms had a common clonal origin.