Oxyphilic tumors of the female and male genital tracts.

A great variety of oxyphilic tumors and tumor-like lesions occur in the female and male genital tracts, particularly in the former. The ovary is the site of a wider range of oxyphilic tumors than any other organ. Not only are its most highly specialized steroid hormone-secreting tumors and tumor-like lesions often completely or predominantly oxyphilic, but occasionally its epithelial cancers have a large component of oxyphilic cells. Several rare germ-cell tumors can also be completely or extensively oxyphilic and, being a common site of metastasis, the ovary can harbor a number of metastatic oxyphilic tumors. The lower female genital tract shares some of the problems in differential diagnosis with the ovary, and can be involved by a variety of mesenchymal oxyphilic tumors as well. In the male genital tract, the testis may be the site of a number of the same oxyphilic tumor types encountered in the ovary, but much less frequently, partly because the testis is an uncommon site of metastatic spread.