Villoglandular papillary adenocarcinoma of the cervix. Beware of a wolf in sheep's clothing

Abstract

Villoglandular papillary adenocarcinoma of the cervix is a well differentiated form of cervical adenocarcinoma with a favourable prognosis and a conservative procedure is suggested. We present three cases of villoglandular papillary adenocarcinoma of the cervix. Histological examination of a biopsy of each cervix showed well differentiated villoglandular papillary adenocarcinoma, stage Ib according to FIGO classification. In all cases the disease was limited to the cervix. Nevertheless, histopathological examination of the surgical specimen revealed an infiltrating component with squamous differentiation in one case, while in a second case histopathological examination revealed a moderately differentiated papillary adenocarcinoma with a superficially infiltrating growth-pattern besides the villoglandular papillary adenocarcinoma. Before conservative therapy is considered, careful evaluation of the presence of poor prognostic features must be made. One should consider whether conservative therapy is sufficient because of the predominance of concomitance of other carcinoma besides the villoglandular papillary adenocarcinoma.