Lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma of cervix: Cytological Features on Conventional Cervical Smear

Lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma (LELC) is a rare neoplasm of the cervix. The importance of distinguishing this undifferentiated carcinoma with a predominant lymphocytic infiltrate lies in the fact that despite being poorly differentiated they have a better prognosis. The diagnosis however becomes more challenging when the pathologist is provided with a small cervical biopsy or a Papanicolaou smear. While the reports describing histology and their relation to Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) are many, there are only few case reports describing the cytology of these tumors. We describe the cytological features of LELC of cervix on conventional smear and correlate it with the histopathological findings of the same. A 67-year-old multiparous Hindu woman presented to the gynecology outpatient department with the history of postmenopausal bleeding for the past six months. The cytological examination of the cervical smear (Papanicolaou stain) was done followed by cervical and endometrial biopsy. Based on Papanicolaou smear and biopsy suggestive of a poorly differentiated carcinoma a radical hysterectomy with pelvic lymphadenectomy was performed. Hysterectomy specimen showed the morphology of LELC and was then correlated with the cervical smears retrospectively. On review of cytological smears it was seen that the tumor cell clusters had an abundant lymphoid background, which was overlooked earlier. Immunohistochemistry for EBV was negative. We conclude that the presence of undifferentiated tumor cell clusters with ill-defined cell borders and large number of lymphoid cells in the background suggest the diagnosis of LELC on cervical cytology. Diagn. Cytopathol. 2017;45:239-242. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.