Table 1.

Summary of the features of choriocarcinoma—adapted from Cheung et al. [3].

Types	Gestational Choriocarcinoma	Non-Gestational Choriocarcinoma
		Germ Cell Tumor	Somatic Carcinoma
Incidence	Ranges from 1 in Europe to −9.2 in Asia/40,000 pregnancies	Rare < 1% of all ovarian tumors—children, young adults but rarely in older adults. Midline tumors mostly in males	Rare ovarian carcinomas in adults
Origin	It may develop as a complication of pregnancy, usually following a complete mole	It arises from primordial germ cells	It arises from differentiation of pluripotent cells into a somatic carcinoma
Site	Primarily uterus and also intraplacental; rarely ovary and extrauterine sites	Gonads, midline: pineal gland, mediastinum, retroperitonum	Lung, gastrointestinal tract, and other organs, including very rare ovarian carcinoma and uterine cases in post-menopause
Histopathology	Mononuclear cytotrophoblast and intermediate trophoblast and multinucleated syncytiotrophoblast cells with marked atypia and mitoses	Mainly in pure form with cyto- and syncytiotrophoblast or with other components of germ cell tumors (mixed germ cell tumor)	Presence hCC-producing multinucleated giant cells; transition with co-existing somatic carcinoma of the particular organ
Cytogenetic features	Deletion of 7p12-7q11.2; amplification of 7q21-q31 and loss of 8p12-21 [3]	Gain of 12p [3]	Unknown
Biochemical features	hCG in serum or urine (>10 × 103 mlU/mL)	hCG in serum or urine	hCG in serum or urine—variable
Molecular markers	Upregulation of TP53, CDKN1A, RB1, EGFR, ERBB2, c-MYC, BCL2, NANOG, H19 [3,8]; Downregulation of NECC1, TIMP3, DOC-2/hDab2, RASSF1A, CDKN2A, CDH1, IGF2, OCT4, SOX2 [3,8]; Mutated genes: NLRP7, ARID1A, SMARCD1, EP300 [9]	Upregulation of CGB5, CGA, NANOG, STELLA, GDF3 [3]	Upregulation of NANOG [3]
Treatment	Chemotherapy	Surgery is indicated. Chemotherapy of different drug regimens is applied	Surgery is indicated. May respond to chemotherapy but it may not be useful
Prognosis	Good	Poor	Poor