[Clinicopathological evaluation on ovarian serous borderline tumours and their implants]

To investigate the clinicopathologic features and the expressions of proliferation cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) in ovarian serous borderline tumours (OSBT).

The primary ovarian tumours, implants and recurrent specimens of 48 cases of OSBT were studied. Expression of PCNA was determined by avidin-biotin-peroxidase complex (ABC) method. Clinical data for all patients were abstracted from hospital records.

While the primary ovarian tumours have the characteristic histological pictures of borderline tumour, three different types of histologic appearance including benign, noninvasive and invasive were shown by their peritoneal implants. All benign and most noninvasive implants were PCNA negative or weakly positive, and the 25 patients were free from tumour 5-28 years after their operations. Some of the noninvasive implants (9/22) were recurrent, and a few (3/22) underwent malignant transformation 10-23 years after surgery. The only one invasive implant was PCNA strongly positive and the patient died 3.5 years after surgery.

The different histologic types of the peritoneal implants are of prognostic significance and are factors to be considered in determining the treatment project. The diagnostic value of PCNA immunoreactivity in implantations is confirmed.