Mass on left Ovary

I was in the ER late Friday night with severe pain in my right side - below my rib cage that radiated to my back in the general area of my kidney. I had already been treated the week before in the same ER for a UTI with antibiotics and a mild pain medication.  This new pain came out of no-where and would not go away with OTC medication - Aleve, Ibuprofen and Tylenol gave me no relief.

After the ER physician reviewed a CT scan of my abdomen, he found a mass on my left ovary (about 5 cm). We are not sure if it is just a cyst, or a solid mass.  With my history of ovarian cysts during my teen years, I'm still very concerned. My concern is that I have no pain on my left side what-so-ever. My question is two-parts: First, how large is an ovary, and second, what are the chances of this particular mass being malignant (considering I am asymptomatic - other than the pain on my right side)?

Thank you!

[MarieMichele]

Taken from a medical site:
"The normal adult ovary measures approximately 3-5 cm in length, 1.5-3 cm in width, and 0.5-1.5 cm in thickness; however, ovarian size is reported more often in terms of volume, or length × width ×  thickness ×  0.523. Normal ovarian volume in the menstruating females is 5-15 mL, with an approximate mean of 10 mL; however, measurements as high as 22 mL have been reported in normal ovaries."

It sounds like they found a cyst that is 5 cm in addition to the ovary itself.  They interchange words like cyst, mass, tumor, growth but it all refers to the same thing.  Cysts can be simple, fluid filled, half solid (complex), or dermoid (mostly solid).  They did not give more details so you don't really know what you have.  You should follow up with a gynecologist and get a transvaginal ultrasound.  That can shed more light on what type of cyst it is and what sort of treatment is advisable for it.  5 cm is big enough for a possible surgical removal, but find out first what type it is to see if it is really necessary.

Cysts can refer pain to opposite sides and areas (legs/back) on occasion (especially at night), but it's hard to say if it caused the pain you had on Friday.  Did they check kidneys, appendix and gall bladder as well?  They can all lead to right-sided pains.  Cysts can also press on the bowels and then it hurts as food passes through the digestive tract (I had a few occasions when I was bent over with pain, and it was all caused by a cyst).  Now that the cyst is gone, no more problems. In surgery, they did an exploratory of the surrounding organs and found nothing wrong.  All my issues were caused by the cyst!

Chances are very good that it is a benign cyst (the vast majority of them are) but you still want to know more about it.  If the cyst caused the right sided pain, you are not exactly symptom free but are experiencing pressure from it (very common).