A clinicopathologic study on adenomyosis uteri.

Clinicopathologic investigations were carried out on 51 cases that had received hysterectomy and had been diagnosed histologically as adenomyosis uteri during a 4-year period since 1977, and the following results were obtained: 1) adenomyosis uteri was found in 51 out of 418 hysterectomized patients, the incidence being 12.2%, 2) 74.5% of the cases with adenomyosis uteri were in the fifth decade, the average being 44.8 years old, 3) 94% of the cases were gravidous, 82% being parous. The incidence of sterility was low in the case of adenomyosis uteri, 4) major symptoms of the adenomyosis uteri were dysmenorrhea and hypermenorrhea, and these symptoms increased in frequency as the degree of adenomyosis uteri progressed, 5) fibroid was a complication of the adenomyosis uteri in 25 cases, while endometrial carcinoma was observed in only 1 case, 6) the ectopic endometrium also showed the same changes in secretory conditions and menstrual changes as the surface endometrium, 7) many cases showed a difference in periodicity between the menstrual cycle and endometrial cycle, and also between the menstrual cycle and the ovarian cycle, and 8) in the ovary, luteinized cysts were observed in 21, 6% of all the cases, corpus luteum persistence in 27.5%, stromal hyperplasia in 33.3%, and follicular cysts in 64.7%. Both the stromal hyperplasia and the follicular cysts were found to increase in frequency as the degree of adenomyosis uteri advanced.