| RESEARCH |
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| CytoJournal 2008, 5:7 |
Prevalence and significance of psammoma bodies in cervicovaginal smears in a cervical cancer screening program with emphasis on a case of primary bilateral ovarian psammocarcinoma
Teresa Pusiol1, Anna M Parolari2, Irene Piscioli3, Luca Morelli1, Franca Del Nonno4, Stefano Licci4
1 Department of Pathology, "S. Maria del Carmine" Hospital, Rovereto (TN), Italy
2 Department of Gynecology, New Hospital of Arco (TN), Italy
3 Department of Radiology, Civil Hospital of Budrio (BO), Italy
4 Department of Pathology, "National Institute for Infectious Diseases – L. Spallanzani" IRCCS, Rome, Italy
Correspondence Address:
Stefano Licci
Department of Pathology, "National Institute for Infectious Diseases – L. Spallanzani" IRCCS, Rome
Italy
© 2008 Pusiol et al; This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
doi:10.1186/1742-6413-5-7
Background: The purpose of our study was to determine the prevalence and significance of psammoma bodies (PBs) in the cervicovaginal smears of the screening population of Trento district (Italy), with the description of the cytological presentation of an asymptomatic bilateral ovarian psammocarcinoma.
Methods: From 1993 to 2006, women with PBs detected on consecutively screened cervical smears were identified from the computerized pathology database of Rovereto Hospital. The follow-up period was set from the time of cytological diagnosis to May 31 st , 2007. Clinical information was obtained from retrospective review of women's medical records. The source of PBs was identified with adequate diagnostic procedures.
Results: PBs were found in six of the 201,231 Papanicolaou screening smears (0.0029%). Benign conditions (intrauterine device, inclusion ovarian cysts and ovarian cystoadenofibroma with PBs) were found in four patients. In two cases, PBs were associated with malignant cells; a bilateral ovarian malignancy was diagnosed in both cases, a serous adenocarcinoma and a psammocarcinoma.
Conclusion: PBs in the cervicovaginal smears are a rare finding, associated more often with benign conditions than with malignancies. Moreover, to our knowledge, our case of primary ovarian psammocarcinoma is the first report in which the presence of malignant cells and PBs in the cervicovaginal and endometrial smears represents the first manifestation of disease.
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