Case records of the Massachusetts General Hospital. Weekly clinicopathological exercises. Case 13-1970

Ovarian tumors with functioning manifestations

Various categories of ovarian tumors, particularly those of gonadal stromal origin, are capable of producing a variety of hormones that occasionally induce interesting clinical manifestations. The endocrine manifestations associated with gonadal stromal tumors are often due to hormone production by the tumor cells. Sometimes the tumor cells produce only one hormone, while more frequently the hormonal manifestations result from a summation of various hormones including transformation of a variety of prehormones produced by different components of the tumor including its supportive or reactive stroma. The mechanisms involved in the production and transformation of various hormones and prehormones are complex and not thoroughly established at this time. This review will focus on gonadal stromal tumors and discuss evidence available for linkage of the clinical manifestations to hormones produced by the various neoplasms.

Composite mucinous ovarian neoplasms associated with Sertoli-Leydig and carcinoid tumors

The authors describe two mucinous ovarian tumors that were hormonally active due to Sertoli-Leydig elements within the septal stroma. Carcinoid was also present in each case. The mesenchymal stromal cells within the septa of the mucinous tumors have undergone neoplastic proliferation with the Sertoli and Leydig differentiations, leading to the formation of arrhenoblastoma. The carcinoid component of these tumors is thought to have originated from argentaffin cells of the "intestinal" mucinous epithelium.