Abstract

Seventy five cases of squamous cell carcinoma of the uterine cervix, invasion depth of which was less than 5 mm from the basement membrane, were reviewed during a period of 9 years from 1975 to 1983 at SNUH and investigated clinicopathologically by the following items; 1) lymphnode metastasis 2) vascular invasion 3) recurrence 4) pattern of invasion 5) cell type. Following results were obtained. 1) Lmyphnode metastasis was demonstrated in 4 out of 75 cases (5.3%). One of them had stromal invasion to 1.3 mm and the other three to a depth of 3.1 to 5.0 mm. 2) Vascular invasion was seen in 5 among the cases (6.7%) and well related to the depth of invasion. Vascular invasion did not occur in tumors with 3 mm depth of stromal invasion. 3) Three patients were with recurrence, treated by postoperative radiation. The depth of stromal invasion was over 2 mm in all of them. 4) The pattern of invasion was confluent in 26 out of 28 cases (92%) whose stromal invasion were over 2 mm depth, while only 3 confluency of 27 cases (11%) invaded less than 1 mm depth. 5) There was no good relationship between the tumor cell type and the depth of stromal invasion. Based on the above results, it is concluded that diagnostic criteria of microinvasive squamous cell carcinoma of the uterine cervix is stromal invasion not exceeding a depth of 3 mm from basement membrane of surface or glandular epithelium.