We herein report a patient with syphilitic cervicitis and cervical cancer presenting as oropharyngeal syphilis. A 31-year-old Japanese woman with a history of unprotected vaginal and oral sex visited our hospital with right submandibular adenomas and erythema in the extremities. The fornix uteri was red, with a nodule noted. The rapid plasma reagin ratio was 1:3. She was diagnosed with syphilitic cervicitis and treated with amoxicillin for four weeks. Initial cervical cytology showed cells with mild nuclear enlargement, which was thought to be metaplasia associated with syphilis. Repeated cytology a month later showed a high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion. A punch biopsy of the lesion led to the pathological diagnosis of cervical carcinoma in situ. We performed cervical conization, and no recurrence occurred. Human papillomavirus (HPV) immunostaining was positive in the lesion. Mucosal lesions are an infrequently reported symptom of syphilis. When oropharyngeal lesions are found, the sexual history should be ascertained, and the patient should be screened for sexually transmitted diseases. HPV is especially significant because of its association with cervical cancer. Coinfection of HPV with cervical cancer must be ruled out during follow-up for women when oropharyngeal syphilis involves genital lesions.
Keywords: syphilis; uterine cervical neoplasms; uterine cervicitis.