[Surgical pathology of ovarian tumors]

Ovarian tumor is known to show histological variation, and show varies clinical behaviour. Surgical pathology of ovarian common epithelial tumors and sex cord-stromal will be reviewed with emphasis on recently described entities, unusual microscopic patterns and problems in differential diagnosis. Also the role of ras oncogene in ovarian tumors will be reviewed. (1) Ovarian epithelial tumors consist of several types of histological findings. Epithelial tumors can be classified into benign, borderline malignancy and malignancy for their biological behavior. It is difficult to make an exact histological diagnosis of benign adenoma, borderline malignancy and malignancy because the histological criteria of borderline malignancy is lacking in concreteness. The histological criteria should be defined more clearly. (2) Pathological diagnosis of the sex cord-stromal tumors was one of the most difficult problems in ovarian pathology. It was discussed with emphasis on differential diagnosis, and the three interesting cases on sex cord-stromal tumors were presented: (1) Granulosa cell tumor with juvenile type, (2) Sertoli Leydig cell tumor with poorly differentiated type, (3) Sex cord tumor with annular tubules. (3) It is increasing that oncogenes are involved in the development and progression of ovarian carcinomas. Histological examination remains an indispensable tool in the diagnosis and evaluation of patients with ovarian carcinomas. In this review the roles of ras oncogene, especially of ras gene product p21 in surgical specimens of human ovarian malignancies are reviewed.