Relationship between age, histological type, and size of ovarian tumors

OBJECTIVE: To clarify the relationship between age, histological type, and size of ovarian tumors. METHOD: A review was made of 1648 cases of histopathologically diagnosed ovarian tumors and tumor-like lesions, and information on the age of the patients and size of the tumor was obtained. Statistical analysis was performed using Kruskal-Wallis tests or Mann-Whitney U-tests. RESULTS: There were 840 (51%) cases of benign tumors, 73 (4%) cases of tumors of low malignant potential (LMP), 268 (16%) cases of malignant tumors and 467 (28%) cases of tumor-like lesions. The age of the patients was significantly different among tumor-like lesions (34.6+/-8.1 years), benign tumors (39.8+/-16.4 years), LMP tumors (45.2+/-18.3 years) and malignant tumors (51.9+/-13.0 years) (P<0.0001). The maximum diameter of the tumors was significantly different among tumor-like lesions (7.1+/-3.3 cm), benign tumors (10.9+/-5.6 cm), malignant tumors (13.6+/-6.5 cm) and LMP tumors (18.5+/-6.8 cm) (P<0.0001). CONCLUSION: The distribution of tumor histological type (tumor-like lesions, benign, LMP and malignant) was correlated against patient age and lesion diameter, with tumors in older patients or larger tumors more likely to be malignant.