Diagnostics and treatment of benign ovarian masses

Ovarian tumors are divided into three main categories: epithelial, germ cell, and germline stromal tumors. Regarding the dignity, they are divided into benign, borderline, or malignant. The most frequent ovarian tumors are benign epithelial serous cystadenomas. Ovarian tumors are usually asymptomatic and mostly discovered as incidental findings. In order to plan an adequate treatment, differentiation into benign/malignant is of great importance. The clarification starts with the anamnesis, physical examination, laboratory biochemical tests and sonography as the imaging gold standard. The therapeutic approach must include the differential diagnosis of a malignancy as well as the hormonal and reproductive aspects of the patient. The gold standard for treatment in the absence of criteria for malignancy is laparoscopic cyst excision in the premenopause and adnexectomy in the postmenopause. In the presence of criteria for malignancy adnexectomy should be carried out in both premenopausal and postmenopausal women to prevent cell spreading.