Cervical adenocarcinoma: a retrospective clinicopathologic study of 16 cases

Endocervical adenocarcinomas account for about 10-30% of cancers of the uterine cervix and display a variety of disparate morphologies. As an objective of the present work, we analyzed the clinicopathologic characteristics and prognostic factor of cervical adenocarcinoma. Clinicomorphological data of 16 cases of endocervical adenocarcinoma were reviewed during 2006-2011. Histopathologically, seven cases were of mucinous endocervical type, one intestinal type, two mucinous villoglandular type, four endometrioid type and two of serous type. The immunohistochemical investigation showed a tipically endocervical carcinoma profile ER-/PR-/Vim-/CEA+ in 10 cases (62.5%), which morphologically corresponded to: five mucinous endocervical type, one villoglandular type, three endometrioid type and one serous type. Regarding the prognosis we established that endometrioid endocervical adenocarcinoma is the histological variant with the worst prognosis, most cases been diagnosed in advanced stages (IIIA and IIIB) while at the opposite pole were papillary villoglandular and serous endocervical adenocarcinomas, diagnosed in less advanced stages of disease (IB and IIB). We concluded that the clinicomorphological diagnosis of endocervical adenocarcinoma is a challenging task, given to its multitude of histological variants and to the fact that immunohistochemistry investigations proved to be useful in only 63% of cases. In addition, we confirmed that the clinical stage is the most important prognostic factor and to some extent, the histomorphologic features can condition the biological behavior of these tumors.