Non-epithelial ovarian carcinoma: what is the optimal staging surgery?

Non-epithelial ovarian neoplasms are a group of infrequent, heterogenous clinical and histological tumors that account from 6% to 10% of ovarian malignancies, the two most common non-epithelial ovarian neoplasms are germ cell tumors and sex cord-stromal cell tumors, each of these classifications is divided in multiple histologic subtypes. In the case of epithelial ovarian tumors comprehensive surgical staging has remained as the gold standard for staging, nonetheless for non-epithelial ovarian neoplasms the use of staging surgery has remained debatable and controversial throughout the years in order to correctly stage non-epithelial ovarian carcinomas. Despite the fact that the role of surgery remains critical in the adequate management of all ovarian tumors, there are several manners to surgically approach an ovarian tumor depending on the type of tumor, risk factors and staging of disease. There are multiple reasons why the use of surgery in non-epithelial ovarian tumors is still debatable nowadays, for instance the main reason relies in the low prevalence of this disease, therefore there are few studies that actually offer a clear and sufficient overview to this issue. The objective of this manuscript is to present a comprehensive review of the non-epithelial carcinoma and to focus in the latest information, evidence and recommendations about the optimal treatment and staging surgery for these tumors.