Abstract

The aim of this study was to perform a clinical and immunohistochemical comparison between simultaneous independent tumors involving endometrium and ovary and metastatic endometrial tumors, and to try to find clinical and /or immunohistochemical parameters differentiating between these two entities. Sixteen cases of simultaneous independent primaries of endometrium and ovary, presenting the same histologic type, were compared with 12 cases of primary endometrial cancer, demonstrating ovarian metastases. The comparison related to patients' characteristics and immunohistochemical expression of estrogen and progesterone receptors (ER,PR), bcl-2, HER-2 /neu, p53, and cell proliferation marker Ki-67 in endometrial and ovarian tumors.

The only clinical parameter differentiating significantly between the groups was the prevalence of familial cancer, being more frequent in the group of metastatic tumors (P = 0.03). Immunohistochemical analysis demonstrated the same immunostaining in endometrium and ovary for all immunohistochemical parameters in cases of metastatic endometrial cancer. Conversely, 62.5% of cases with simultaneous tumors of endometrium and ovary could be differentiated from metastatic tumors by distinct immunohistochemical expression of ER and PR in endometrial and ovarian tumors (P = 0.0006), and 31.3% of cases could be differentiated by distinct immunostaining for bcl-2 (P = 0.03). Immunohistochemical parameters HER–2 /neu, p53 and Ki-67 were not appropriate for the distinction between the two study groups. We conclude that the application of immunohistochemical analysis may play an important role in the differentiation between cases of simultaneous independent carcinomas of endometrium and ovary vs. cases of endometrial carcinoma with ovarian metastases.