1. ¹Departments of Pathology, University Hospital, Granada, Spain
2. ²University of Montevideo, Uruguay
3. ³Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncológicas (CNIO), Madrid, Spain

Correspondence: Dr FF Nogales MD, Departamento de Anatomía Patológica, Facultad de Medicina, 11, Granada 18012, Spain. E-mail: fnogales@ugr.es

Received 20 January 2004; Accepted 23 February 2004; Published online 9 April 2004.

Abstract

A 23-year-old woman presented with a 7 cm right multicystic mass in the ovary, which corresponded microscopically to an unusual lesion consisting of a multifocal granulosa cell tumor with intrafollicular ('in situ') growth involving two-thirds of mature follicles. Stromal invasion was found in only one area where neoplastic follicles coalesced. Granulosa cells had atypical, bizarre TP53 positive nuclei with hyperchromatism, abundant mitoses and numerous hyaline globules. The contralateral ovary was normal. From the age of 10 years, the patient had a complex medical history of multiple tumors, including telangiectatic osteosarcoma, typical and malignant phyllodes tumor, reticulohistiocytoma of skin, carcinomas of the breast and lipo- and leiomyosarcoma. The female genital tract also harbored myometrial leiomyomas and an early endometrial carcinoma. Retrospective histologic study of all mesenchymal neoplasms in this patient showed, the conspicuous presence of similar bizarre TP53 positive cells with hyaline globules in all the mesenchymal neoplasms. In the genetic study, a germline p53 gene mutation was detected in exon 10, codon 336, generating a stop codon in the oligomerization domain of the protein (E336X). A further p53 mutation was found in exon 7 in the granulosa cell tumor. Mutation occurred de novo since there was no history of tumors in any family members, all of whom had a wild-type p53. Although this patient shows a typical tumor phenotype of Li Fraumeni syndrome, the germline mutation corresponded to a highly unusual mutated domain, which is similar to the one found in childhood malignant adrenocortical tumor; also a rare neoplasm that originates in adrenocortical cells; which are closely related, both functionally and embryologically, to granulosa cells.