Detection of endometrial stromal sarcoma in cervicovaginal smears: reports of three cases.

Although the small neoplastic cells of pure endometrial stomal sarcoma do not usually exfoliate readily, they are sometimes detected in cervicovaginal smears. In three cases, constituting half the patients with histologically confirmed endometrial stromal sarcoma from 1971 through 1979 at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, cervicovaginal smears also contained malignant or suspicious cells. All three had certain common features: mostly rounded, small malignant cells with occasional tapered "comet" forms, discernible nucleoli and a tumor diathesis.