Cervical atypical cells-cannot exclude a premalignant high-grade lesion (ASC-H)

Células del cuello uterino con atipias que no descartan una lesión de alto grado (ASC-H) con premalignidad

Introduction: the presence of atypical squamous cells-cannot exclude a high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (ASC-H) is significant, for approximately 50% could correspond to a cervix premalignant lesion. Objective: to describe the most frequent cytomorphological alterations on cervical cytology categorized as ASC-H, associated with a clinically significant histologically proven lesion. Methodology: this was a retrospective study performed at the cytology laboratory of the School of Pharmacy and Bioanalysis of Andes University and the Cancer Prevention Clinic of the Anti-Cancer Society in Merida-Venezuela, on cases with an ASC-H result on cervical cytology, analyzed between January 2010 and December 2016. Results: abnormal histopathological results were found in 35.8% (19/53) of cases: 22.6% had only an infection by HPV and 13.2% a premalignant lesion (CIN) combined with a HPV infection. 73.7% with CIN and/or HPV presented atypical immature metaplastic cells with hyperchromasia (78%), anisokaryosis (100%), and irregular nuclear membrane chromatin (92.9%), on a non-inflammatory background. Conclusions: the most frequent cytomorphological alterations on cervical cytology categorized as ASC-H associated with a significant histologically proven lesion were: anisokaryosis, hyperchromasia and irregular nuclear membrane chromatin, on a clean background. The same atypical cells were common in the CIN 1, 2 or 3 and/or HPV groups, showing statistical significant differences (p<0.05).

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