Isolated or phagocytosed miniature dyskeratotic cells in papilloma virus infection associated with cervical neoplasia

Dyskeratotic cells that occur in squamous cervical epithelium under certain abnormal conditions appear in cervical smears in sheets or aggregates, or as miniature cells, either isolated or phagocytosed. In order to determine the tissue correlates of such cells, 116 cervical biopsies with a histopathologic diagnosis of papillomavirus (HPV) infection were reviewed and compared to previous findings in cytological smears; the patients were 18‐65 yr of age. Eighty of the 116 cases had, in addition, cervical intra‐epithelial neoplasia (CIN). A much higher number of miniature dyskeratotic cells was recorded in the biopsies from patients with both HPV and CIN types of lesions (76.3% of the biopsies had isolated miniature cells and 41.3% showed phagocytosed miniature cells), compared to those with only HPV infection (19.4% with isolated and 5.5% with phagocytosed miniature cells). In addition, in the HPV plus CIN patients, the more advanced the neoplastic lesion, the higher the percentage of cases in which both types of dyskeratocytes are observed. These highly keratinized isolated miniature cells are found in, and are considered to arise from, the deeper layers of the epithelium; when phagocytosed they appear in the center of a concentric arrangement of cells. These cells constitute a pathological entity that can be distinguished from the sheets and aggregates of dyskeratotic cells that come from the superficial layers of parakeratotic epithelia. © 1992 Wiley‐Liss. Inc.