The pathologic behavior of primary vaginal carcinoma and its relationship to cervical cancer.
The surgical pathology files at the University of Alabama Medical Center for 1958 through 1973 contain records of 157 cases of vaginal carcinoma. Of the 141 patients on whom complete records are available, 37 had primary and 104 secondary vaginal carcinoma. Only 3 of the primary vaginal malignancies were adenocarcinoma; the rest were epidermoid. The microscopic appearance of these carcinomas was frequently lateral spreading or papillary, but in a few instances the growth pattern was submucosal. Prognosis appeared to be related to the stage of the disease. Vaginal carcinomas associated with cervical cancer clustered either within 1 year or 5 years after the therapeutic treatment. In this paper, the relationship between primary vaginal cancer and cervical cancer is discussed.