Colloid carcinoma of the intestinal type in the uterine cervix: mucin immunohistochemistry.

A case of colloid carcinoma (gelatinous carcinoma) of the intestinal type in the uterine cervix is reported along with the findings of an immunohistochemical study of intracytoplasmic mucus of the neoplastic cells. The patient was a 69-year-old woman with a circumferential uterine cervical tumor measuring about 4 cm. Histopathological examination of the hysterectomy specimen demonstrated typical features of colloid carcinoma. The tumor consisted of numerous mucous nodules, and low-columnar or cuboidal cells with intracytoplasmic mucus lined the margins of the mucous nodules or floated within them. The cytoplasm of neoplastic cells was immunoreactive for both cytokeratins 7 and 20, and the intracytoplasmic mucus was immunoreactive for MUC2 but negative for MUC5AC and MUC6. Nuclei of tumor cells were immunoreactive for CDX2. Colloid carcinoma is a very rare variant of mucus-producing adenocarcinoma of the uterine cervix and probably a heterogeneous group that consists of neoplasms of different histogeneses, that is, neoplasms of endocervical, gastric, and intestinal origins. Results of the immunohistochemical studies in the present case showed that neoplastic cells produced mucus of the large intestine type, thus verifying the presence of a distinct subtype of colloid carcinoma of the cervix that shows the intestinal phenotype.