Successful management of mucinous ovarian cancer by conservative surgery in week 6 of pregnancy: case report and literature review

Abstract

PurposeThe management of ovarian cancer during pregnancy is still a big challenge, mostly due to the reciprocal impacts between cancer and pregnancy. The objective of this article is to present a rare case of maternal ovarian adenocarcinoma and review published similar cases about this clinical condition.Materials and methodsHere we report a rare case of maternal ovarian adenocarcinoma detected during gestational week 6, with good pregnancy outcome treated with conservative surgery.Results and discussionA case of maternal ovarian adenocarcinoma (stage I) was detected in week 6 of pregnancy receiving conservative surgery without chemotherapy. In week 39 of pregnancy, due to relapse of the cancer, the patient underwent excision of the isolated tumor, and gave birth to a healthy baby through cesarian section. After that, the patient received cytoreductive surgery associated with six chemotherapy. The patient was finally diagnosed as epithelial ovarian cancer stage IIIC, and had survived more than 5 years without relapse. The successful experience from this case suggested that pregnancy complicated with early ovarian cancer receiving conservative surgery could continue to pregnancy and the effect of cesarian section followed with cytoreductive surgery associated with six chemotherapy at full term was still satisfied.