- Choriocarcinoma
- A highly malignant tumor that arises from trophoblastic cells within the uterus. Choriocarcinoma tends to be invasive and to metastasize early and widely through both the venous and lymphatic systems. Choriocarcinoma is one of the two types of gestational trophoblastic tumor, the other being hydatidiform mole. Choriocarcinoma may follow any type of pregnancy. It is especially likely to occur with a hydatidiform mole (molar pregnancy). About 2 to 3% of hydatidiform moles are complicated by the development of choriocarcinoma. The prognosis for women with metastatic choriocarcinoma was once grim. It has markedly improved with the advent of multidrug chemotherapy. Patients with high-risk metastatic disease usually need aggressive multidrug chemotherapy. Women with low-risk metastatic disease are sometimes treated with a single drug. Overall, the cure rate for high-risk patients is 60 to 80%.
* * *A highly malignant neoplasm derived from placental syncytial trophoblasts and cytotrophoblasts which forms irregular sheets and cords, which are surrounded by irregular “lakes” of blood; villi are not formed; neoplastic cells invade blood vessel s. Hemorrhagic metastases develop relatively early in the course of the illness, and are frequently found in the lungs, liver, brain, and vagina, and various other pelvic organs; c. may follow any type of pregnancy, especially hydatidiform mole, and occasionally originates in teratoid neoplasms of the ovaries or testes. SYN: chorioepithelioma.
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cho·rio·car·ci·no·ma -.kärs-ən-'ō-mə n, pl -mas also -ma·ta -mət-ə a malignant tumor derived from trophoblastic tissue consisting of syncytiotrophoblasts and cytotrophoblasts that develops typically in the uterus following pregnancy, miscarriage, or abortion esp. when associated with a hydatidiform mole or rarely in the testes or ovaries chiefly as a component of a mixed germ-cell tumor* * *
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cho·rio·car·ci·no·ma (kor″e-o-kahr″sĭ-noґmə) [chorio- + carcinoma] an epithelial malignancy of trophoblastic cells, formed by the abnormal proliferation of cuboidal and syncytial cells of the placental epithelium, without the production of chorionic villi. Almost all cases arise in the uterus, developing from hydatidiform mole, following abortion, or during normal pregnancy. The remainder occur in ectopic pregnancies and genital (ovarian and testicular) and extragenital teratomas. Called also chorioblastoma, chorioepithelioma, chorionic carcinoma or epithelioma, and syncytioma malignum.
Medical dictionary. 2011.
