Cervical cyto/histological nomenclature : making practical sense of past and recent changes

Abstract

Before the early 1980s the cytology and histopathology categories of precancerous cervical changes were termed mild, moderate and severe dysplasia (or dyskaryosis) and carcinoma in-situ. Furthermore, a distinctive cytoplasmic clearing in squamous cells was termed koilocytosis, without knowing what exactly caused it. In the early 1980s electron microscopy determined that koilocytosis was due to HPV infection, later confirmed by the emerging DNA technologies (which also confirmed that cervical cancers contain HPV DNA). So koilocytosis and HPV cytological changes are synonymous. At the same time the histological HPV changes were described as flat condyloma and distinguished from premalignant neoplastic dysplasia. [excerpt]