Comparison of the Quantity of Langerhans Cells in Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia and Chronic Cervicitis

Abstract

Introduction: Cervical cancer is attributed to human papillomavirus (HPV), whose infection mostly undergoes spontaneous regression. The smaller part of cases that evolve to low and high-grade lesions or invasive lesions may be related to failure of Langerhans cell activity to eliminate the virus. Objective: To determine if there is reduction of Langerhans’cells in cervix uterus affected by cervical intraepithelial neoplasms (CIN) grades I and III compared to control group (chronic cervicitis) by immunohistochemistry, granting the correlation of the immune system action with the development of these lesions. Method: It were analyzed 40 cases of chronic cervicitis, CIN I and III with anatomopathological diagnosis between January 2014 and December 2015, attempting to compare the amount of positively labeled Langerhans cells nuclei by S-100 protein by immunohistochemistry, quantifying them in standard areas. Results: Of the 40 evaluated cases, 17 were chronic cervicitis, 13 CIN I and 10 CIN III. The comparative analysis of the number of cells in each group showed that the mean, standard deviation and median number of Langerhans cells per area were higher in the chronic cervicitis group and lower in the CIN III group. The p value found in the variation of the Langerhans cells number among the groups was significant (p=0.0442). However, when comparing the CIN groups directly with the control group, only the CIN III group had a significant variation (p=0.0209). Conclusion: There is a significant decrease in the number of marked Langerhans cell nuclei in CIN III type lesions compared to chronic cervicitis.