Ovarian non-gestational placental site trophoblastic tumor with lung metastasis: further evidence for a distinct category of trophoblastic neoplasm

Abstract

Abstract We previously described a series of cases which characterize a distinct group of primary ovarian placental site trophoblastic tumor (PSTT) and epithelioid trophoblastic tumor (ETT) as a non-gestational set consistent with germ cell type/origin. Here we report a new case of ovarian non-gestational PSTT. The patient was a 13 year-old young female admitted for a spontaneous pneumothorax of the left lung. The pathology of lung wedge excision specimen demonstrated metastatic PSTT and ovarian biopsy showed atypical intermediate trophoblastic proliferation which was found to be PSTT in the subsequent salpingo-oophorectomy specimen. In the ovary, the tumor was composed of singly dispersed or small clusters of predominantly mononuclear cells and rare multinucleated cells extensively infiltrating the ovarian parenchyma, tubal mucosa, and paraovarian/paratubal soft tissue. A minor component of mature cystic teratoma (less than 5% of total tumor volume) was present. Immunohistochemically, the neoplastic cells of main tumor were diffusely immunoreactive for hPL, Gata3 and AE1/AE3, and had only rare hCG-positive or p63-positive cells. The morphology and immunohistochemical results support a PSTT. Molecular genotyping revealed an identical genotype pattern between the normal lung tissue and the metastatic PSTT, indicating its non-gestational nature of germ cell type/origin. This case represents the first case of such tumor with distant (lung) metastasis. This case also provides further evidence to support our recommendation that primary ovarian non-gestational intermediate trophoblastic tumors of germ cell type/origin, including PSTT and ETT, should be formally recognized in classification systems.

Keywords

• Molecular genotyping
• Non-gestational trophoblastic tumor
• Ovarian germ cell tumor
• Placental site trophoblastic tumor