Esophageal Adenocarcinoma Methods and Protocols

68

there is no universal accepted criterion to identify clearly the

esophagogastric junction.

It is important to confirm the pathology of the adenocarci-

noma and aware of the different characteristics of the types and

variants before deciding the management and research of this type

of adenocarcinoma. Esophageal adenocarcinoma often extends

locally and distant metastases occur late. More importantly, many

of the esophageal adenocarcinomas are treated by neoadjuvant

therapies (medical therapies—most commonly chemotherapy and

radiotherapy given before operation) before surgery [ 3 ]. These

treatments have altered their histological features examined at the

surgical removed specimen for esophageal adenocarcinoma.

2 Materials

1. Clinical information of the resected or biopsied esophageal
   adenocarcinoma.


2. Macroscopic information of the specimen (see Chapters 7 and 8 ).

Fig. 1 Adenocarcinoma involving lower esophagus and esophagogastric junction

(green arrow). Adjacent to the cancer, tongues of tan color tissue replacing the

whitish squamous mucosa of the esophagus (blue arrow). These regions are

columnar epithelium as a result of metaplasia due to GORD

Alfred K. Lam