Endocervical adenocarcinoma. Clinico-pathologic and histochemical study of 29 cases.

Twenty-nine women were treated for endocervical adenocarcinoma in the University of Bari in the years 1975-1981. The histological type was "endocervical" or "mucinous" in 12 patients (41.4%), "endometrioid" in 12 (41.4%), "clear cell" in 2 (6.9%), "adenosquamous" in 2 (6.9%), and "serous" or "papillary" in 1. Foci of papillary and endometrioid metaplasia were present in 2 adenocarcinomas of endocervical type. The following histochemical methods were used: PAS reaction, PAS reaction with diastase predigestion, Bleu Alcian at pH 2.5 and pH 1, mucicarmine, Toluidine Bleu at 0.3%. The "endocervical" type adenocarcinoma showed mucicarmine positive and PAS positive, diastase resistant material in the whole cytoplasm. This material was not metachromatic and Bleu Alcian positive only in the well differentiated forms. In the "endometrial" adenocarcinoma only in the apex of the glandular cells was PAS positive diastase resistant, Alcian and mucicarmine positive. "Clear cell" and "adenosquamous" carcinomas showed only few cytoplasmatic PAS positive, diastase sensitive granules (= glycogen). No positivity was present in the "papillary" or "serous" carcinomas. Our results permit us to unify the histological and the histochemical patterns of the cervical adenocarcinomas and those of the similar forms of the endometrium and of the ovary, and stress the common müllerian origin of these neoplasms.