Risk of Gynecologic Cancer after Atypical Glandular Cells Found on Cervical Cytology: A Population-Based Cohort Study

Atypical glandular cells (AGC) are rare abnormalities found on cervical cytology associated with a range of lesions of the female reproductive system. We compared the risk of cervical and other gynecologic cancers following AGC on cervical cytology with the risk following squamous cell abnormalities of comparable severity. We used data from the Dutch Pathology Archive (PALGA) from 2000 to 2015 to categorize cervical cytology tests into groups based on most severe cytologic abnormality and correlated follow-up advice (normal cytology and "no follow-up" advice, squamous-cell-based, AGC-based, and combined AGC/squamous-cell based each with either repeat testing or referral advice). Cancer data were linked from the Netherlands Cancer Registry. Cox proportional hazard models were calculated stratified by age [younger (