Uterine Tumors Resembling Ovarian Sex Cord Tumor in Postmenopausal Woman.

Abstract

Uterine tumors resembling ovarian sex cord tumors (UTROSCTs) are a rare group of stromal neoplasms containing prominent sex cord-like elements. Since they were first described in 1945 by Morehead and Bowman [1], no more than 100 such tumors have been reported [2]. In a report by Clement and Scully [3], these neoplasms were divided into 2 groups on the basis of clinical and histologic patterns. The first group (group I) included endometrial stromal tumors with less than 50 % sex cord-like elements, and the second group (group II) included UTROSCTs exhibiting sex cord-like differentiation of more than 50 %. In the latest, according to the World Health Organization classification of uterine neoplasms, UTROSCTs were placed in a miscellaneous category of tumors of the uterine corpus because of their different morphology and benign clinical behaviors [4]. More recently, UTROSCTs have been suggested to be unusual neoplasms of uncertain malignancy with polyphenotypic immunohistochemical expression, characterized by positivity for sex cord, epithelial, and myoid markers [5, 6]. These tumors usually occur in premenopausal or menopausal women. Most patients have symptoms such as abnormal vaginal bleeding, abdominal pain, and enlarged uterus or a palpable uterine mass on physical examination [7]. In most cases, UTROSCT is diagnosed incidentally after hysterectomy for a clinical diagnosis of an endometrial polyp [8, 9] or sometimes leiomyoma [10]. We report a case of UTROSCT in a postmenopausal woman with vaginal bleeding who was diagnosed with uterine sarcoma at a local clinic.