Clinicopathologic features and genetic alterations in endometrioid carcinoma of the uterus with villoglandular differentiation

Serious and endometrioid carcinomas differ dramatically in their clinical behavior; however, the specific significance of villoglandular (papillary) differentiation in endometrioid carcinoma has been studied rarely. We compared the clinicopathologic features and genetic alterations in 28 villoglandular endometrioid carcinomas compared with 60 nonvilloglandular endometrioid carcinomas and 60 healthy women. The study revealed a slight increase in the frequency of early-stage disease in villoglandular tumors compared with nonvilloglandular tumors. No differences were observed in the age at onset or cellular grade. The oncogene and susceptibility gene analyses revealed a positive association of K-ras oncogene mutation and germline variants of the cytochrome P-450 1A1 (CYP1A1) gene and an inverse association of the p53PIN3 variant with villoglandular carcinomas, whereas no differences were observed in the c-erbB2/neu oncogene amplification or the methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase germline variant. Finally, a positive association was found between CYP1A1 and methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase variants and the presence of papillary differentiation in the myometrial component. The results suggest that the villoglandular differentiation pattern arises without aggressive clinicopathologic features in a genetic background of transforming and carcinogen-metabolism genes, characteristic of estrogen-related endometrial tumors (type 1) not exhibiting an unfavorable prognosis.