Metastatic melanoma of the uterine cervix diagnosed on cervical Pap smear: Case report and literature review

摘要

Metastatic cancer involving the uterine cervix is exceedingly rare, and accounts for less than 1% of cancer deaths. The cervix is an uncommon location for metastatic lesions due to its limited blood supply and fibrous stroma and metastatic melanoma of the cervix is particularly infrequent. To the best of our knowledge and literature review, there have only been nine reported cases in the literature of metastatic melanoma involving the uterine cervix that were diagnosed via cervicovaginal Pap smears, including the case being reported in this paper. Diagnosing metastatic melanoma on cervicovaginal cytology specimens is challenging, not only because of its rarity, but also because of the inherent ability of melanoma to take on many different cytomorphologic appearances. In such cases, the differential diagnosis may include a high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion, atypical glandular cells, adenocarcinoma and other poorly differentiated malignancies. We report a case of malignant melanoma to the cervix diagnosed by a routine cervical Pap smear in a young woman who was diagnosed with cutaneous melanoma 3years prior. Because of the diagnosis rendered on her cervical Pap smear, she was subsequently found to have widespread metastatic disease. Although the cervical Pap smear is primarily intended to screen for squamous intraepithelial lesions, a high index of suspicion must be maintained for other less common entities, particularly when there is no evidence of a squamous intraepithelial lesion.