Unusual endocervical lesions with endocrine cells.

Four cases of unusual lesions of endocervix are presented. They were all incidental findings, showing no obvious infiltrative and metastatic properties to attest their malignant nature. Two lesions were entirely confined to the endocervical mucosa. The main characteristics of these proliferative processes thus were an abnormal architecture with branched or small glands, a hypermucinous benign-appearing epithelium of endocervical type, and stromal smooth-muscle. In contrast with normal endocervical mucosa, all lesions contained prominent and variegated endocrine cells. These 4 cases were quite comparable to 3 other observations previously reported. This homogeneous group of endocervical lesions does not correspond to a well-defined type of endocervical neoplasia. It shares morphological analogies with adenoma malignum. The relationship with adenoma malignum as well as with some other gynaecological neoplasms is discussed. The recognition of these small-sized and highly differentiated lesions is largely facilitated by the use of the Grimelius reaction to detect argyrophilic cells.