title: Frequency of epithelial giant cells in smears with Papillomavirus.
abstract: We re-screened cytological smears from patients who presented Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infection detected morphologically in order to verify the frequency of associated giant epithelial cells, as recently mentioned in the literature. Our results demonstrated that 14 (13.7%) of 102 cases showed the giant epithelial cells, associated or not with macronmucleosis, bi or multinucleation. Epithelial giant cells showed a poor reaction to the avidin-biotin-peroxidase to the BPV-1 antigen. We conclude that epithelial giant cell is not a frequent cytologic feature in HPV, and the avidin-biotin-peroxidase study did not detect a marked expression of HPV late antigen.
authors.affiliation: Division of Pathology, Adolfo Lutz Institute, São Paulo Public Health Service, Brasil.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Longatto Filho
authors.forename: N K
authors.initials: NK
authors.lastname: Shirata
authors.forename: M Y
authors.initials: MY
authors.lastname: Maeda
authors.forename: C T
authors.initials: CT
authors.lastname: Kanamura
authors.forename: V A
authors.initials: VA
authors.lastname: Alves
mesh_terms: D002278:Carcinoma in Situ / Q000473:pathology*; D004848:Epithelium / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D027383:Papillomaviridae; D030361:Papillomavirus Infections / Q000473:pathology*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014412:Tumor Virus Infections / Q000473:pathology*; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D014626:Vaginal Smears