Late recurrence in ovarian dysgerminoma with successful response to standard adjuvant chemotherapy: A case report and review of the literature

Background. Ovarian dysgerminomas are quite amenable to treatment and very good cure rates are achieved even with advanced disease. However, recent li terature suggests that late recurrence may be associated with a poorer prog nosis and bleomycin/etoposide/cisplatin (BEP) chemotherapy may play only a limited role in its management. We present a patient who had a late recurre nce of ovarian dysgerminoma with successful treatment outcome. Case. A 25-year-old woman was diagnosed with a stage IC ovarian dysgerminom a in 1983 and did not undergo adjuvant treatment. She had late recurrence 1 2 years later with good treatment response to BEP chemotherapy given in a s emiadjuvant fashion. Conclusion. Our case demonstrates that BEP chemotherapy still plays an impo rtant role in treatment of late recurrence in ovarian dysgerminomas provide d there is small volume disease at time of detection. Also important is lon g-term surveillance in an effort to detect recurrence while still small in volume and potentially curable. (C) 2001 Academic Press.