The clinicopathologic and immunohistochemical features of villoglandular adenocarcinoma of uterine cervix

Aim

Villoglandular adenocarcinoma (VGA) of the uterine cervix is a variant of endocervical adenocarcinoma. However, the clinicopathologic and immunohistochemical features of VGA are still unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the clinicopathologic and immunohistochemical features of VGA.

Materials and Methods

A total of 20 VGA patients were identified among 852 patients diagnosed with cervical cancer and enrolled in this study. The immunohistochemical levels of Ki-67, P53, P16, progesterone receptor (PR), carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), vimentin (Vim), and estrogen receptor (ER) were measured by immunohistochemistry.

Results

VGA was prevalent in younger women and presented favorable prognosis. Ki-67, P16, and CEA were highly expressed in VGA tissues, while PR expression was hardly to be detected. The positive rates of Ki-67, CEA, and P16 were 90.0%, 90.0%, and 85.0%, respectively, which were significantly higher compared with PR (5.0%, P < 0.001). In addition, the positive rates of P53, Vim, and ER in VGA tissues were 55.0%, 50.0%, and 40.0%, respectively. However, the expression levels of Ki-67, P53, P16, PR, CEA, Vim, and ER were not significantly associated with clinical features (P > 0.05).

Conclusion

These data indicate that VGA is a rare cervical adenocarcinoma, which is prevalent in younger women, and presents favorable prognosis. Detection of Ki-67, P53, P16, PR, CEA, Vim, and ER would be beneficial for the diagnosis of VGA.

Villoglandular adenocarcinoma of cervix: pathologic features, clinical management, and outcome

Background

The objective of the study was to investigate the management and prognosis of patients with villoglandular adenocarcinoma (VGA) of the uterine cervix.

Materials and methods

The clinical presentation, pathology, management, and prognosis of 41 patients with VGA or other types of cervical adenocarcinoma (ADC) were retrospectively reviewed.

Results

During the patient follow-up period, the proportion of VGA was 8.1% in the cervical ADC cohort (41/507). The median age of the patients with VGA was 41.0 years. The most common presenting symptom was cervical contactive bleeding. There were 38 patients classified as FIGO stage IA1-IB. The median follow-up period was 38.5 months. There were no patient deaths, and only one patient showed recurrence. One of the patients delivered a healthy baby at 34 weeks of gestation prior to treatment with radical hysterectomy. The HPV HC2 test results showed that most patients were positive for HPV infection. HPV 16, 18, and 56 were positive in the 8 patients with HPV type test results. There were significant differences in the grade, depth of stromal invasion, lymph node metastasis, and recurrence between the VGA cases of FIGO stage I and the other types of cervical ADC of FIGO stage I (p<0.05).

Conclusion

This study confirmed that VGA is a type of well-differentiated cervical cancer characterized by shallow stromal invasion, less lymph node metastasis. VGA is associated with less recurrence than other types of cervical ADC.