Uterocervicoplasty with a bladder mucosa layer for the treatment of complete cervical agenesis.

Objective: To create an endocervical canal in a patient with a complete cervical agenesis.

Design: Case report.

Setting: University hospital.

Desmosomes and gap-junctions in various epidermoid preneoplastic and neoplastic lesions of the cervix uteri.

The distribution of desmosomes and of gap-junctions was studied by morphometric means, at the electron microscopic level, in the following lesions of the uterine cervix: metaplasia, moderate and severe dysplasia, carcinoma in situ and invasive epidermoid carcinoma. The results were compared with normal exocervical epithelium. The proportion of the cell surface occupied by gap-junctions was decreased in all lesions; gap-junctions were statistically absent from moderate dysplasia and more advanced lesions.

Desmosomes and gap junctions in precarcinomatous and carcinomatous conditions of squamous epithelia. An electron microscopic and morphometrical study.

By means of morphometrical techniques we have studied the distribution of gap junctions and desmosomes in uterine epithelial cells during normal, preneoplastic and neoplastic conditions, and in skin and oral cavity during normal and neoplastic conditions. The percentage of cell surface occupied by gap junctions as well as the surface to volume ratio of these structures decreases progressively from normal to metaplastic and moderately dysplastic cervical epithelium and is practically null in more severe conditions. The percentage of cell surface occupied by desmosomes decreased significantly from normal to metaplastic epithelium; the decrease is less sharp from metaplastic epithelium to dysplastic epithelium and carcinoma in situ; it then becomes again abrupt from carcinoma in situ to invasive carcinoma.