Cytologic Features of Villoglandular Adenocarcinoma of the Uterine Cervix : A Report of Two Cases

Kim, Bohng Hee

Abstract

Villoglandular adenocarcinoma of uterine cervix has recently been described, and is characterized by good prognosis and occurrence in young women, except a small number of cases. Morphologically, it exclusively shows villoglandular growth and mild to moderate nuclear atypia, the cytologic diagnoses have been frequently missed due to interpretation error. We report here on the cytologic findings of two cases, and both cases were not diagnosed as adenocarcinoma before punch biopsy. One of these cases showed previously described characteristic features such as high cellularity and large tissue fragments with long villous fronds lined by columnar cell with mild nuclear atypia. The other showed moderate cellularity of somewhat smaller clusters without long villous structures. The clusters showed marked nuclear overlapping and the nuclei showed distinct moderate atypia with hyperchromasia and coarse chromatin pattern. The nucleoli were indistinct. Recognition of these features will be helpful to avoid underdiagnosis as a benign lesion, although diagnosis is still difficult in a portion of the cases.