Abstract

A 50 year old female was admitted to a major tertiary hospital with abdominal pain and fever and was treated as presumed diverticulitis with a tubo-ovarian abscess later identified. Following antibiotic treatment for both diverticulitis and pelvic inflammatory disease, a prolonged admission and two laparotomies, histopathology returned an unexpected diagnosis of primary ovarian Squamous Cell Carcinoma (SCC). This showed no sign of having arisen from a teratoma, endometriosis or Brenner’s tumour. The SCC was found to be locally advanced and only palliative treatment was able to be offered. This case is important in part due to its rarity and contribution to a small pool of literature on this disease. It also serves as a reminder to not take undue reassurance from normal tumour markers or the absence of traditional risk factors for malignancy. It is also an important reminder that when the clinical picture does not fit the presumed diagnosis, there are rarer causes to be consid