[Preliminary experience with colposcopic diagnosis of cervical adenocarcinoma]

Colposcopic technique has become a major method in the diagnosis of cervical cancer. Sixteen patients of adenocarcinoma of the cervix were examined by colposcopy from 1984.2 to 1991.6. Transformation-zone-like and papillary finding were common colposcopical appearances of adenocarcinoma of the cervix. The common vascular patterns in 16 cases were root-like vessels and waste-thread-like vessel. Among the 16 cases, cytologic positive rate was only 25% (3/12), while the accordance rate between colposcopic examination and pathology was 84.6% (11/13). The result suggests that colposcopic examination is superior to the cytology in the diagnosis of cervical adenocarcinoma. Based on the above results and the data of literature, we consider that there are obvious differences of colposcopic findings between adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix which may be useful in the early diagnosis of the cervical adenocarcinoma.