Villoglandular adenocarcinoma of the cervix: two new cases with morphological and molecular study

In this paper, we report 2 new cases of villoglandular papillary adenocarcinoma (VGPA) of the cervix, a rare, well-differentiated form of cervical adenocarcinoma. Both patients were without medical complications or history of oral contraceptive use and were nonsmokers. Extended hysterectomy was performed in both cases. Morphological criteria for a correct pathological diagnosis were emphasized. Immunohistochemical analysis was performed to clarify the phenotype of the neoplasms. Moreover, for the first time, we probed to establish if VGPA could be correlated to human papilloma virus (HPV) and herpes virus (HSV) types 1 and 2, using polymerase chain reaction amplification of tumoral DNA. Both neoplasms showed positivity for B72.3, Ca-125, carcinoembryonic antigen, keratin 7, and p16(INK4a) protein. Vimentin, P53, estrogen, and progesterone receptors, instead, were negative. Molecular study by polymerase chain reaction amplification of tumor DNA revealed a strong positive signal for HPV-DNA and no signal for HSV-DNA. It is reasonable to conclude that our cases of VGPA, in accordance with other examples reported in literature, are due to HPV infection. Behavioral cofactors, such as HSV infection (types 1 and 2), oral contraceptive use and smoking, involved in the pathogenesis of other cervical malignancies, can be excluded for the present cases.