Adenoacanthomas of ovary and uterus occurring as coexistent or sequential primary neoplasms

HE OCCURRENCE in the same patient of T adenoacanthomas of ovary and endometrium is not uncommon.Dockerty's review6 of 2,000 ovarian neoplasms included 40 adenoacanthomas, of which 27 were accompanied by endometrial adenoacanthoma.Since 1955 we have seen 5 ovarian adenoacanthomas, each of which was accompanied by adenoacanthoma of the uterus (Tables 1 and 2).When solitary, ovarian adenoacanthomas have been shown to arise in endometriosis.6,10,22 When accompanied by uterine adenoacanthoma, however, ovarian adenoacanthomas have perhaps too frequently in the past been dismissed as metastases,2, 4, and even when their independent primary origin was suspected, they could not be traced to an unequivocal primary origin in the heterotopic endometrium that was sometimes present.4~6,12, In our 5 cases, endometriosis appeared to give rise to each of the ovarian tumors, and for other reasons as well, the ovarian and endometrial tumors were considered to be quite independent.This report records the findings upon which this opinion is based and outlines some of the implications that arise from it.