Ovarian metastases from cancer of the lung: problems in interpretation--a report of seven cases.

Seven women, 26 to 66 (average 42) years of age, from whom ovarian tumors were removed before (three cases), synchronously with (three cases), or less than 1 year after (one case) the discovery of a pulmonary neoplasm are the subjects of this report. The ovarian tumor was unilateral in six cases and bilateral in one case and was unassociated with intraabdominal spread. The lung tumors, which were similar to the ovarian tumors on microscopic examination, were central in six cases and peripheral in one; three of them were small cell undifferentiated carcinomas, two large cell undifferentiated carcinomas, one a poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma, and one an atypical spindle cell carcinoid tumor. In each case the question of the primary site of the tumor had been raised clinically. The histological similarity of the ovarian and pulmonary tumors in all the cases to well-recognized forms of pulmonary neoplasia as well as additional clinical and pathological features of the cases led to an interpretation of a pulmonary origin of the tumors in all the cases.