Glossary Definitions

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Atrophy
The decrease of hormonal production after menopause induces an epithelial atrophy of the squamous mucosa with at the histological level, a decrease of the number of cell layers (under 10 layers usually). The mucosa becomes fragile thus facilitating inflammatory processes. At the endocervical level, the mucus secretion is decreased with mucosal dryness explaining artefacts on smears (acidophilia, enlarged nuclei with pale chromatin).

Cytopathology atlas

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