Hepatoid carcinoma of the ovary. A newly described tumor

Abstract

Five cases of ovarian carcinoma with hepatoid features, three of them primary and two probably primary, are described. The tumor cells were arranged predominantly in sheets and contained moderate to abundant amounts of eosinophilic cytoplasm; varying numbers of tumor cells stained immunohistochemically for alpha fetoprotein. In contrast to the much younger age range of patients with ovarian hepatoid yolk sac tumors, the ages of the five patients with hepatoid carcinomas ranged from 42 to 78 (average, 63 years), and none of them had gonadal dysgenesis or recognizable germ cell components within their tumors. All the tumors presented as adnexal masses; in four cases they were Stage III and in one case, Stage IIB; this last tumor spread to the upper abdomen within 4 years. In three cases the clinical course and pathology findings indicated that the tumor had originated in the ovary; in the remaining two cases the tumors were interpreted as only probably primary in the ovary. Hepatoid carcinomas must be distinguished from other ovarian neoplasms, especially from hepatoid yolk sac tumors.