Postmenopausal Palpable Ovary Syndrome

Abstract

The time has come to reevaluate our clinical approach to ovarian pathology. Although carcinoma of the endometrium is still the most prevalent cancer of the female reproductive system, ovarian carcinoma has become the leading killer of women who die from gynecologic malignancy. With the present state of diagnostic development, diagnosis of an ovarian tumor is a matter of chance rather than a scientific discovery. By the time it is diagnosed, ovarian cancer in more than 70 to 80% of the patients has spread beyond the ovary. The hard fact remains that a pelvic mass found during a pelvic examination is the only practical and consistent clinical method available to us to detect an ovarian tumor. Certain functional or dysontogenetic tumors with hormone activity are the exception. However, there are only a few such tumors compared to the number of epithelial tumors, which comprise the main group of killers.