Significance of Morphometric Evaluation of PreMalignant and Malignant Lesions of Uterine Cervix: A Cross-sectional Analytical Study

Abstract

Introduction: Morphometric analysis of various parameters of the cells is done to classify the lesion as benign or malignant. It is an objective assessment which reduces the variability due to subjective visual assessment. Authors have done the nuclear morphometric analysis in ectocervix and endocervix tissue sections. Aim: To evaluate the significance and utility of nuclear morphometry in pre-malignant and malignant lesions of uterine cervix. Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective crosssectional study done on 120 cases of cervix which were categorised histomorphologically into normal ectocervix, chronic cervicitis, Low-Grade Squamous Intraepithelial Lesion (LSIL), High-Grade Squamous Intraepithelial Lesion (HSIL), Squamous Cell Carcinoma (SCC), normal endocervix, chronic endocervicitis, Low-Grade Cervical Glandular Intraepithelial Neoplasia (LCGIN), Adenocarcinoma In Situ (AIS) and adenocarcinoma. The quantitative nuclear morphometry analysis was done and entered in Microsoft Excel sheet. Statistical analysis was done by using SPSS software 22.0 version. The p-value <0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: In ectocervical cases, all the nuclear parameters as Mean Nuclear area (MNA), Mean Nuclear Perimeter (MNP), Minimum Nuclear Diameter (mND), Maximum Nuclear Diameter (MND), Mean Nuclear Compactness (MNC) and Mean Nuclear size (MNS) were statistically significant (p-value <0.05) except Mean Shape Factor (MSHF) where the p-value was 0.415. In the endocervical cases, only mND and MSHF were statistically significant. Conclusion: Nuclear morphometry can be used as a tool in distinguishing the premalignant and malignant lesions in both ectocervical and endocervical tissue samples.

Keywords

• cervical cancer
• cervical intraepithelial neoplasm
• morphometric study