THE RELATIVE FREQUENCY AND HISTOPATHOLOGICAL PATTERN OF OVARIAN MASSES

Background: Ovarian tumours are one of the major causes of gynaecological problems in females and present marked variation in their histological types. Relative frequency of these lesions is different for Western and Asian countries. This study was designed to find out frequency of various histological patterns of ovarian tumors in patients attending Pathology Department of a teaching institute in Lahore. Material and Methods: A retrospective case – series study was conducted on 212 cases of ovarian masses, reported from January 2007 to December 2010. Results: Mean age of the subjects was 35.6 years, ranging from 4 to 80 years. In a total of 212 cases of ovarian masses, 85 (40.09%) were non-neoplastic and 127 (59.91%) were neoplastic. Among neoplastic lesions, 64.57% (82/127) were benign and 35.43% (45/127) were malignant. The commonest non-neoplastic lesion was luteal cyst (38/85) followed by simple serous cyst (30/85). The commonest benign tumour was dermoid cyst (31/82) followed by serous cystadenoms (20/82). The commonest malignant tumour was serous cystadenocarcinoma (11/45) followed by mucinous cystadenocarcinomama (9/45). Conclusion: Neoplastic lesions were more common than non-neoplastic lesions, while benign tumours outnumbered the malignant ones. The commonest benign tumour was dermoid cyst and malignant was serous cystadenocarcinoma. The commonest non-neoplastic lesion was luteal cyst. Among histological types of ovarian tumours, surface epithelial tumours dominated the other types.