[Cervical cancer even after recovery from preliminary stage]

Patients with histologically confirmed cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) grade 1-3 who have completed a 2-year follow-up period with three negative cytological test results show an incidence of invasive carcinoma of 35.1 per 100,000 women years. Their risk for invasive cancer is 4-fold the risk in healthy women who had a negative primary test result. It has been proposed that this group should be kept in long-term, frequent follow-up. The author argues that if cervical cancer develops in these women, the treatment and diagnostics of CIN might have been incorrect. If the thickness of the electrosurgically excised tissue strips is insufficient, more deeply situated parts of the cervical crypts may be left behind in the stroma. After healing, cervical carcinoma may develop beneath a normal surface if these parts of the crypts contain intraepithelial neoplastic cells. This carcinoma is not amenable to early diagnosis. Before deciding on a more intense follow-up, we have to investigate the quality of the diagnostics and treatment in this group of women.