Gestational Trophoblastic Disease

Gestational trophoblastic disease (GTD) represents a group of disorders that derive from placental trophoblastic tissue, including hydatidiform moles, postmolar gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN), and gestational choriocarcinoma. GTN is the most curable gynecologic malignancy and tends to be more common after a complete molar pregnancy than a partial mole. Human chorionic gonadotropin (β-hCG) represents a marker for GTD and should be followed for 6 months after molar pregnancy evacuation to rule out the development of postmolar GTN. GTN is defined by a plateaued, rising, or prolonged elevated β-hCG value after molar evacuation; histologic diagnosis of choriocarcinoma, invasive mole, placental site trophoblastic tumor, or epithelioid trophoblastic tumor; or identification of metastasis after molar pregnancy evacuation. Classification for GTN as low (score ≤ 6) or high risk (score > 7) is based on the World Health Organization prognostic score. This scoring system helps select treatment, which usually entails actinomycin D or methotrexate for low-risk disease and EMA/CO (etoposide, methotrexate, actinomycin D/cyclophosphamide, vincristine) for high-risk disease. These regimens can achieve cure rates approaching 100% and over 90% for low- and high-risk disease, respectively.  This review contains 5 figures, 8 tables and 49 references Key words: choriocarcinoma, gestational trophoblastic disease, gestational trophoblastic neoplasia, human chorionic gonadotropin, hydatidiform mole, invasive mole