Expression of α-methylacyl coenzyme A racemase in the dysplasia carcinoma sequence associated with Barrett’s esophagus

Two different studies demonstrated alpha-methylacyl coenzyme A racemase (AMACR) to be a highly specific marker in Barrett's neoplastic lesions. Reactive atypia was positive in 3/30 cases in these studies. We present a retrospective study of early Barrett's adenocarcinoma treated with surgery (2000-2005, n=29; M:F=5:1, median age 67 years). We analyzed the role of AMACR expression in reactive and neoplastic lesions associated with the disease of 77 different specimens (60 biopsy and 17 surgical specimens) of these patients. In our cohort, 70% of cases demonstrated infiltration of the submucosa, 38% were poorly differentiated, and/or 31% demonstrated lymph vessel infiltration. We used a multi…