title: Presentation of endometriosis of the cervix in cervical smear: a case report and review of literature.
abstract: Endometriosis of the cervix is considered a rare lesion with a predilection in women with a previous history of cervical trauma, such as biopsy, conization, or laser vaporization. Description of endometriosis of the cervix in cytological literature is equally rare with most of the published reports dealing with the role of fine-needle aspiration in diagnosis and how the atypia in cases with cervical endometriosis poses differential diagnosis for other premalignant and malignant endocervical lesions. We present here a case depicting endometriosis of the cervix in a cervical/endocervical smear from a 48-year-old female with intermenstrual spotting. The purpose of this article is 2-fold: to report a case of endometriosis of the cervix in exfoliative cytology and to review pertinent cytological literature. In this article, cytological and histological presentation of cervical endometriosis is described, and the importance of considering cervical endometriosis in the differential diagnosis when dealing with endometrial shedding that is not part of the normal physiology in a cycling woman is emphasized.
authors.affiliation: Department of Laboratory Sciences, College of Health Professions, Philadelphia, PA 19107, USA. indra.balachandran@mail.tju.edu
authors.forename: Indra
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Balachandran
authors.forename: Marina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gerber