Archived Volumes of Past Issues

Editorial

JPGO has completed one year. It has been an interesting time. We did not opt for software that made all processes of publication automatic, but chose to do everything ourselves. Preparing the design and layout of the journal's website, coding to make it work, getting peer reviews, editing, uploading articles and images, and getting the journal indexed was a lot of hard work. Managing it along with our clinical, teaching and research work and meeting the deadline of the first of every month was taxing, but rewarding too. It has kindled an academic interest in resident doctors in the institute. It has improved their thought process and writing skills tremendously. It has also generated a lot of interest in the scientific community outside our institute, as is evident from the ever expanding readership of the journal. We introduced 'quiz' based on the articles published in each issue, to help assess our postgraduate students. That was a great success. From this issue, we have introduced another section on 'image'. Various interesting images will be published. The idea is based on the fact that in clinical management, one has to make rapid decisions based on what one sees. Analytical discussion of interesting images should help clinicians and students sharpen their skills further.

An ovary can be a seat of a number of conditions, both functional and organic. Its lesions can be small to large, cystic, solid or solid-cystic. Organic lesions can be neoplastic or nonneoplastic. There is a particular group formed by large cystic lesions that is of current interest. Mucinous cystadenoma, mucinous borderline tumor and mucinous cystadenocarcinoma form a part of this group. They can be quite large tumors. Serous cystadenomas and carcinomas are not so large. A benign cystic teratoma can sometimes be large, though usually it is moderate sized. Nonneoplastic cysts in the ovary include simple follicular cyst, corpus luteal cyst, hemorrhagic cyst, and endometrioma. Of these, an endometrioma can be large. A primary ovarian abscess is rare, and usually an acute condition. Sometimes a tubo-ovarian abscess heals and gets converted into a cyst. It may mimic an ovarian neoplasm at laparotomy and even during histopathological examination. Rarely an abscess may develop in an endometriotic cyst. An actinomycotic abscess can be very large. It is usually associated with the use of an intrauterine device. Chronic ovarian abscess is an uncommon presentation of ovarian tuberculosis. A hydatid cyst of the ovary is another uncommon condition. Usually differentiation of the cystic lesions of the ovary can be done by clinical examination, ultrasonography, and computed tomography in selected cases. A cystic lesion of the ovary may need magnetic resonance imaging for differentiation during pregnancy, when ultrasonography proves to be inadequate for that purpose. In this issue we have two interesting case reports. One is of a large ovarian abscess of tuberculous etiology in a young virginal girl. What is unusual in this case is that there was a slow leak of the pus from the abscess into the peritoneal cavity producing a large peritonitis, without involvement of any other organ by the disease. The other case is that of a large mucinous cystadenocarcinoma in a young virginal girl, who was asymptomatic. The tumor contained a large volume of fluid which appeared like pus, but was sterile. Such varied presentations of large ovarian cystic masses need to be known to practicing gynecologists, so that they can manage an unusual case better, should they encounter one. That is the reason we have presented these two cases in this issue.