Inverted papilloma of the cervix and vagina: report of 2 cases of a rare lesion associated with human papillomavirus 42

Abstract

We report 2 cases of a lesion that we term inverted papilloma of the lower female genital tract, occurring in the cervix and upper vagina of 60- and 50-year-old women, respectively. Microscopically, the features were similar to those of inverted transitional papilloma of the urinary bladder with interconnecting islands, trabeculae, and solid sheets of bland transitional epithelium with an inverted growth pattern. There were small foci of squamous and glandular differentiation in the cervical case. Linear array human papillomavirus genotyping revealed human papillomavirus type 42 in both cases. Inverted papilloma in the lower female genital tract is extremely rare with, as far as we are aware, only 3 previously reported similar cases in the cervix and none in the vagina. Our results suggest that these neoplasms when occurring in the lower female genital tract may be associated with low-risk human papillomavirus, perhaps specifically human papillomavirus 42.