[1053] The Relationship of the Presence of Eosinophils with Chronic Endometritis

Y Pei, PA Adegboyega. Louisiana State University Health Science Center in Shreveport, Shreveport, LA

Background: Chronic endometritis is pathologically diagnosed based on the presence of plasma cells in the endometrial stroma. However, many conditions can mimic or interfere with the search for plasma cells, including the plasmacytoid stroma cells or preducidual changes of stroma cells. Eosinophils are another type of chronic inflammatory cells, which can be easily identified with routine hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stain by their characteristic eosinophilic granules. As far as we know, there have no published studies on the relationship between chronic endometritis and the presence of eosinophils in the endometrium. Therefore, the goal of this study is to investigate if eosinophils can be another marker for chronic endometritis.
Design: The H&E stained glass slides of consecutive endometrial biopsies in LSUHSC-Shreveport over a period of 2 months (06/01/2008 to 7/31/2008) were reviewed. The biopsies that revealed the presence of eosinophils were subjected to immunohistochemical staining with CD138, a marker for plasma cells.
Results: In all, 184 cases of endometrial biopsy were reviewed and 38 biopsies (20%) showed eosinophils. Among those 38 cases, 29 (70%) revealed presence of plasma cells (positive staining with CD138). Of these 29 cases, only one case was diagnosed as chronic endometritis. The average number of eosinophils in the biopsies with positive plasma cell staining was 3.96/40 HPF, while that with negative plasma cell staining was 1.78/40 HPF. However, there was no statistically significant correlation of the number of eosinophils with the number of plasma cells identified by immunostaining.
Conclusions: The presence of eosinophils in endometrial biopsy specimen suggests a need to search for plasma cells (with immunostaining if needed) for the diagnosis of chronic endometritis.
Category: Gynecologic

Wednesday, March 11, 2009 1:00 PM

Poster Session VI # 137, Wednesday Afternoon