Cytological diagnosis of cervical adenocarcinoma and cytohistological agreement at General Hospital of Mexico “Dr. Eduardo Liceaga”

Abstract

Background

Cervical adenocarcinoma has increased in recent years, and there is no early form of detection other than cervicovaginal cytology, which has a high sensitivity and specificity for squamous lesions, but poor sensitivity in detecting adenocarcinoma. In our hospital, previous research on this topic has not been done.

Objective

To know the number of cases of cervical adenocarcinoma diagnosed by cervicovaginal cytology, as well as the degree of discordance by histopathological study.

Material and method

A cytohistological correlation was performed in 82 of 120 cases diagnosed as “adenocarcinoma” in cervical cytology at the General Hospital of Mexico “Dr. Eduardo Liceaga “in the period from 2007 to 2016.

Results

82 cases with biopsy study by the Surgical Pathology service were categorised into 25 cases (30.48%) of adenocarcinoma of the cervix, 21 (25.60%) of adenocarcinoma of the endometrium, 17 (20.73%) squamous lesions, 7 (8.53%) changes by metaplasia or cervicitis, 3 (3.65%) mixed Müllerian tumours, and 1 case (1.21%) of the following: papillary cystadenocarcinoma of the ovary, colonic mestastasic adenocarcinoma, endometrial hyperplasia, normal endometrium and polypoid adenomyoma. Four cases (4.87%) did not have an adequate biopsy at the first time, and the diagnosis could not be corroborated.

Conclusions

Cervicovaginal cytology is a useful tool for the detection of glandular lesions, however, it is difficult to discriminate on origin only through morphology, since many other entities overlap.