Metastatic choriocarcinoma in a postmenopausal woman

Abstract

Trophoblastic disease is usually related to pregnancy and occurs in about 1 in 1300 pregnancies in Western countries. Since the advent of methotrexate therapy, trophoblastic tumors have become one of the most curable malignancies. Trophoblastic disease can develop independently of gestation, but this is very rare. We report the unusual case of a 58-year-old woman who had a metastatic choriocarcinoma 6 years after menopause and 29 years after her last pregnancy. The tumor proved to be primarily resistant to monochemotherapy and developed chemoresistance to three different polychemotherapeutic regimens. Eleven months after the diagnosis of uterine choriocarcinoma the patient died from advanced metastatic disease.