[Chlamydia trachomatis--histomorphologic finding in infection of the uterine cervix]

Uterine cervix biopsies from 20 women, in whom cell cultures were chlamydia-positive, were compared with 20 biopsies from chlamydia-negative women on the basis of inflammatory changes and proliferative epithelial reactions. There was a tendency towards severe chronic lymphocytic inflammations, especially those associated with the rare clinical picture of follicular cervicitis, and towards acute erosive forms and microabscesses to be found more frequently among the chlamydia-positive women. Hyperplasia of the reserve cells, which was probably connected with the more severe inflammatory reactions, with normotypical and dysplastic proliferations, was also seen more frequently in the chlamydia-positive group. The difficulty of distinguishing hyperplastic reserve cells from dysplastic squamous epithelia in cytological smears offers an explanation why such cases are relatively frequently overrated in cytological diagnosis. No chlamydia-typical changes of the cell nuclei or of the cytoplasm were found. It thus appears impossible to detect chlamydia in routine histological diagnosis.