[Histopathology of squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma of the uterine cervix].

The introduction of a screening programme for carcinoma of the cervix uteri has lead to a reduction in the number of invasive carcinomas and to a relative increase in the frequency of preinvasive cervical lesions. The most frequent type of invasive cancer of the cervix is squamous cell carcinoma. Adenocarcinomas are much more infrequent. Special subtypes of squamous cell carcinomas are the papillary (squamotransitional) subtype, the verrrucous subtype and the lymphoepithelioma-like subtype. Among the various forms of adenocarcinoma, the mucinous subtype is the most frequent, either as endocervical or interstinal subtype. Much more rare are the serous and clear cell carcinomas. Great concern in daily diagnosis causes the adenoma malignum (minimal deviation adenocarcinoma), since this type of adenocarcinoma demonstrates only minor cytological atypia and greatly resembles the different types of endocervical glandular hyperplasia.A report on a cervical carcinoma should always include the typing and grading of the tumor. Immunohistochemical stains are often useful to distinguish the various types of primary cervical cancer and to distinguish these from metastatic lesions.