Premalignant and Malignant Changes in Symptomatic Endometrial Polyps in Women Aged 20-70 years

Background: endometrial polyps are localized over growth of endometrium including glandular and stromal tissue with prominent angiogenesis regulated by growth factors. Polyps occur in different age group and could be asymptomatic and discovered incidentally or it cause abnormal premenopausal and postmenopausal bleeding. Most endometrial polyps are benign but premalignant and malignant changes also occur frequently. Objective: this study was carried out to identify the age-group in which endomaterial polyps are encountered in routine surgical pathology practice, to document the agegroup in which these polyps underwent malignant changes and to identify the histological subtype of endometrial polyps according to age group. Patients and methods: This prospective study conducted to demonstrate the premalignant and malignant changes in symptomatic endometrial polyps in relation to patients age group ranging from 20-70 years with abnormal uterine bleeding examined in gynecology and obstetric department in Al-Ramadi and Al-Yarmouk Teaching Hospital during the period from January 2017 to May 2018. The endometrial samples were obtained either by D and C, hysteroscopy or the polyps were demonstrated after surgical hysterectomy. All endometrial samples were fixed in 10% formalin solution and sent to the private histopathology laboratory in Baghdad for histopathological diagnosis. Results: The total number of examined women were 150. The most common recorded age was 20-70 years. 74.6% were premenopausal and 25.4% of patients were post-menopausal at the time of diagnosis. Most of patients presented with symptomatic polyps in this study were in age group 41-50 years (36.6%) in which most of the polyps were benign, while premalignant and malignant changes were more common in women between 51-60 years. The final pathological diagnoses showed benign endometrial polyps (49.3%), (48.6%) were pre-malignant polyps and (2 %) were malignant polyps. From benign lesions secretary endometrium was the most common finding in 43 cases (58.1%), while simple endometrial hyperplasia without atypia was the most common finding in the pre-malignant group 40 cases (54.7%). The distribution of histopathological changes in each age group were significant with a P value equal to 0.02. Conclusion: all endometrial polyps in pre- and post-menopausal women should be removed and submitted for histopathological examination as some of them even though there are benign but could carry areas of cellular atypia or malignant transformation.