ちつ前壁下部２／３に発生したちつ原発せんがんの病理組織学的および超微形態学的１考察

Primary carcinoma of the vagina is one of the rare tumors (0.5%-3%) of the female genital tract cancer. Most of them are squamous cell carcinoma, and few adenocarcinoma.<br>In this paper, the cytological, histopathological and ultrastructural findings of the adenocarcinoma in the caudal part (2/3) of the vaginal anterior wall were reported. When the adenocarcinoma in the vaginal smear is recognized, the origin of the tumor is to be determined, though very difficult. Adenocarcinoma of the vagina was thought to arise from the vaginal adenosis, remnants of embrional organs (e. g. Gartner duct) or foci of endometriosis, and generally resembled to endocervical or endometrial carcinomas.<br>The case was 68 years old and the tumor was almost hen's egg in size and was located on the caudal part (2/3) of vaginal anterior wall.<br>The three types of the predominant histological patterns were observed in the tumor, that is, the tubular areas, glandular areas with signet-ring components and the solid areas with anaplastic cells.<br>The backgrounds of the smear were clean and cytoplasm of the dyskaryotic cells was generally scant and resembled to endocervical adenocarcinoma but not to clear cell carcinoma.<br>The epitherial cells of the tumor did not consist of so-called hobnail or peg-shaped cells which were characteristic of clear cell carcinoma. The intracellular secretary substances were positive in mucicarmine, PAS and Alcian blue staining, but the carcinoma cells of the paraurethral gland were not stained with Alcian blue. This findings resembled to endocervical adenocarcinoma but the location of this tumor was lower vaginal wall.<br>The ultrastructure of the tumor cells resembled to endocervical epithelial cells and did not show the prominent aggregates of glycogen granules, and stacked granular endoplasmic reticulum, which were specific to clear cell carcinoma.