Objective: To study the clinical pathological characteristics and high risk factors for borderline ovarian tumor (BOT) and stage I epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC).
Methods: A total of 91 patients with BOT and 52 patients with stage IEOC who were diagnosed and treated in the Department of Gynecology, Peking University People's Hospital from November 2002 to May 2010 were recruited in this study. The patients' clinical characteristics were reviewed respectively and compared between the two groups.
Results: The women in BOT group were significantly younger than those in EOC group (41.16 ± 14.95 vs. 50.90 ± 14.37,P<0.01). Compared with women with BOT, women with EOC were more likely to be post-menopausal(42.3% vs. 23.1%,P=0.016) and more with family history of malignant tumors (26.9% vs. 13.2%,P=0.04).There were no significant differences in the size of tumors and the serum level of tumor markers. But the size of solid portion of the tumor of EOC was significantly larger than that of BOT(P<0.01). The extent of the increase of CP2 among the patients with EOC was higher than that among the patients with BOT(256.99 vs. 116.59, P=0.028). There was a statistically significant difference between the two groups in tumors' histopathological type(P<0.01). The serous and mucous tumors were more common in EOC group (90.1%, 82/91). In contrary, endometrioid, clear cells and mixed epithelial cancers were more common in EOC group than serous and mucous cancers (44.2%, 23/52).
Conclusion: Although the clinical presentation of patients with stage I EOC was similar to that of those with BOT, there were significant differences in the patients' age, post-menopausal or not, family history of malignant tumors, size of solid portion of tumors, extent of the increase of the tumor biomarker, especially of CP2 and tumors histopathological type. These clinicopathological characteristics might be helpful for us to make different diagnosis.