Objective: To study tubal morphological changes in different diseases of the female reproductive system and to assess its role in the histogenesis of ovarian cancer.
Material and methods: Surgical materials from 77 patients were examined. In all cases, the uterine tubes were studied totally. According to morphological and clinical diagnoses, the materials obtained from the patients were divided into a few groups including, among other conditions, high-grade ovarian cancer, benign ovarian neoplasms, malignancies of other female reproductive organs, etc. Serous tubal intraepithelial carcinoma (STIC), tubal epithelial dysplasia, and other changes were assessed in each case.
Results: In high-grade serous carcinoma (HGSC), there were precancer changes as dysplasia and STIC in the macroscopically intact uterine tubes in 30% of cases. The uterine tubes and ovaries were synchronously involved in 50% of cases. Such changes were absent in the fallopian tubes when the ovaries exhibited low-grade serous carcinoma, a borderline tumor or high-grade carcinoma of another histological form different from HGSC. In other malignancies of the female reproductive system, dysplasia and STIC were identified in 5 (10.9%) of 46 cases in the total examination of the uterine tubes.
Conclusion: The findings support the tubal origin hypothesis for HGSC. The investigation clearly demonstrated the need for a total examination of the fallopian tubes not only in tumor lesions of the ovaries and other sites (corpus and cervix uteri, breast), but also during tumor-unassociated surgery.