Intramural carcinomas of the uterine corpus: a clinicopathological study.

Cases in which no sizable amount of tumor was observed in the uterine cavity and the main foci of the carcinoma were exclusively confined to the myometrium, were studied pathologically in a series of carcinomas of the uterine corpus. Ten out of 350 carcinomas of the uterine corpus proper fell into this category, and one case of suspicious metastatic corpus tumor from the ovary was also considered. The growth pattern of these tumors was classified into following 6 groups: (a) growth confined to the myometrium, (b) nodular growth in the myometrium with minimal endometrial involvement, (c) scattered (scirrhous) growth in the myometrium with marked shedding of the endometrium, (d) almost complete replacement of the myometrium by carcinoma with endometrial shedding (e) extreme subtype of usual endophytic growth pattern and (f) diffuse, intra-lymphatic spread of secondary tumor. One, 2, 3, 1, 3, and 1 cases of tumors of group, (a)-(f), were observed respectively in our pathological files. A spectrum of initial symptoms, diagnostic procedures, histology and histogenesis of the tumor was described in this report.