Preneoplastic and neoplastic cervical lesions as detected in Cytoblock® sections: The importance of sampling women with bleeding symptoms

Purpose of investigation: The purpose was to use cervical samples to prepare Cytoblocks and use the subsequent paraffin sections for additional immunostaining in our studies on angiogenesis.

Methods: Between January and April 2006, 261 women with bleeding complaints were selected of which 85 had gone to their general practitioner (GP) because of postcoital bleeding. The 261 cervical samples were processed by the Shandon Cytoblock Preparation System. On the subsequent prepared Papanicolaou-stained paraffin sections a histological diagnosis was rendered on the minibiopsies.

Results: In all (pre)invasive cases, the paraffin sections contained numerous cancerous minibiopsies. The (pre)invasive cases had many Ki-67 positive nuclei displaying an S-phase staining pattern. In the Ki-67 stained sections, the glandular architecture of the two AIS cases and the two adenocarcinoma cases was highlighted.

Conclusion: Histologic paraffin sections provided enough minibiopsies to allow concise diagnosis including evaluation of proliferation. Signs of cervical angiogenesis, including postcoital bleeding, can be a strong argument to prepare cytoblocks from samples collected by sampling brushes.

Proliferation; Cervical angiogenesis; Cytoblocks

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