Adenocarcinoma of the uterine cervix with choriocarcinomatous and hepatoiddifferentiation: Report of a case

A case of adenocarcinoma of the uterine cervix that showed choriocarcinomat ous and hepatoid differentiation was encountered in a 65-year-old woman. Sh e presented with genital bleeding and had multiple metastatic nodules in th e lungs. At operation, a large, hemorrhagic, and necrotic tumor was found i n the uterine cervix. The major portion of the tumor consisted of typical c horiocarcinoma admired with minor areas of hepatoid carcinoma and endocervi cal adenocarcinoma. Human chorionic gonadotropin and alpha-fetoprotein were detected in tumor cells In the choriocarcinomatous and hepatoid areas, res pectively. The patient died of pulmonary metastasis 4 months after the oper ation. The coexistence of choriocarcinomatous and hepatoid carcinoma in an endocervical adenocarcinoma has not been reported previously, Both heteroto pic components were probably derived from aberrant differentiation (or neom etaplasia) of the somatic epithelial cells of the endocervical adenocarcino ma.