Diverse facets of cervical adenocarcinoma: comprehensive review of clinicopathologic features and diagnostic criteria

Cervical adenocarcinomas span a diverse group of tumours in terms of their pathogenesis, morphology and patients’ prognosis. The diagnostic challenges are numerous and arise with virtually every case. The issues that may be particularly difficult in histopathologic evaluation of cervical adenocarcinomas include 1) differentiating in-situ and invasive tumours from their benign mimics, 2) differentiating adenocarcinoma in-situ from an early invasive lesion, 3) measuring the depth of invasion, 4) differentiating primary cervical adenocarcinoma from uterine endometrial adenocarcinoma or tumours metastatic from other primary sites such as colon. The paper reviews the pathogenesis, clinical characteristics, diagnostic criteria, immunohistochemical markers, differential diagnosis and prognosis of various subtypes of cervical adenocarcinoma.