Are you sure you want to log out?
This work is a retrospective study of the histopathological pattern of cervical neoplasia carried out in the Department of Morbid Anatomy of Lagos University Teaching Hospital between January 1993 and December 2002. All cases with diagnosis of various forms of cervical neoplasia were reviewed from the records of the department. The corresponding slides were retrieved and where necessary the paraffin blocks were recut and restained and Alcian blue was used as a special stain where necessary. The tumours were classified according to WHO.5 A total of 806 cervical biopsies were received of which 542 (67.2%) were true cervical neoplasia. Malignant lesions were commoner than their benign counterpart and accounted for 410 (75.6%) of cases. Squamous cell carcinoma was the predominant type and constituted 88.0% of malignant lesions. The non-keratinizing type was the predominant variant and constituted 67.3% of the squamous cell carcinoma. The mean age for carcinoma was 54.8 years. CIN the premalignant lesion for squamous cell carcinoma accounted for only 47 cases (8.7%) with a mean age of 37.5 years approximately 17 years before the invasive form. Adenocarcinoma accounted for 4.9% of all malignancies and there were only 2 cases (0.4%) of sarcoma seen and both were leiomyosarcoma. Benign lesions accounted for 132(24.4%) of cervical neoplasia with endocervical polyps as the most common followed by leiomyoma. This study suggests that cervical neoplasia are common cervical lesions in this environ and that the malignant variants are commoner than their benign counterpart with squamous cell carcinoma being the most predominant type of cervical neoplasia. The age incidence as well as the histological characteristics appear similar to what is observed in previous studies from Nigeria and other parts of the world.