Cytologic Differential Diagnostic Problems in Ulcerative Cervicitis

Abstract

Objective: To improve the detection rates in the determination of signs consistent with ulcerative cervicitis against signs of intraepithelial neoplasia, in PAP smears. Study design: We investigated the frequency of establishing a diagnosis of a simple ulcerative cervicitis by histology in a cohort of 58 females with cervical cytology suggestive of intraepithelial neoplasia. Results: There was found a detection rate of 81.58% in the determination of ulcerative cervicitis by cytology and a rate of 100% in the determination of HPV-infection, CIN1, CIN2 and CIN3 respectively. There was no statistically significant difference between cytology and histology in the diagnosis of ultracerative cervicitis (p>0.5, chi-square). Conclusions: There is an overestimation of the cytological signs in the diagnosis of ulcerative cervicitis 18.42 %). There is also an excellent agreement in the diagnosis of HPV-infection and CIN grades (100 %) between cytology and histology, discordant with the literature (2.4 %–71 %).

Keywords

• Ulcerative cervicitis
• Cervical intraepithelial neoplacia (CIN)
• HPV-infection
• Cytology
• Histology