Significance of foamy histiocytes in cervical smears from postmenopausal women

To determine the significance of the presence of foamy histiocytes (FH) in postmenopausal cervicovaginal smears for the detection of endometrial carcinomas (EC).

Endometrial sampling was performed over 6 months in 53 of 102 cases that presented with postmenopausal FH, benign endometrial cells (BEC), FH with BEC (FH + BEC), and atypical endometrial cells (AEC), resulting in a total of 41,150 cervicovaginal smears. The control group consisted of 58 cases with a cytologic diagnosis of a normal smear (NS).

There were 0 (0%), 1 (4.54%), 2 (13.33%), 2 (33.33%), and 5 (50.00%) cases of EC diagnosed on histopathologic evaluation in patients with NS (n = 58), BEC (n = 22), FH (n = 15), FH + BEC (n = 6), and AEC (n = 10), respectively. The sensitivities and specificities of the cytologic diagnoses of FH, FH + BEC, and AEC for the detection of EC were 81.7 and 100%, 93.6 and 100%, and 92.1 and 100%, respectively.

The cytologic diagnoses of FH and FH + BEC had reasonably high sensitivities and specificities for the diagnosis of EC by cervicovaginal smear. Additional studies are needed.