Jithin Eldo Paul1, Rajesh Mithalavalaram Raghavan2, Sasi Malayan Parambil3
BACKGROUND
Cancer of the oesophagus is the ninth most common malignancy, causes 2% of all cancer-related deaths worldwide. This study was aimed to determine the type of malignancy more common in gastro oesophageal junction as well as to know the age and gender distribution of malignancy.
METHODS
Longitudinal study was done by including all the diagnosed cases of carcinoma of gastro oesophageal junction who had undergone oesophagectomy. The resected specimen of the subset of patients with adenocarcinoma was examined for the presence of intestinal metaplasia using haematoxylin and eosin stain.
RESULTS
A total of 36 patients were studied. Among the 36 cases, 21 cases (58.33%) were squamous cell carcinoma with 13 patients (61.9%) between 50 years and 70 years of age and rest 15 cases (41.66%) were adenocarcinoma with 8 patients (53.3%) between 50 to 60 years of age. All the adenocarcinomas were presented in late stage (T3 or T4), 60% with lymph node metastasis and 20% of patients had intestinal metaplasia. Among the patients with squamous cell carcinoma, 62% presented with T3 disease and 33% presented with T2 disease and only 19% of patients had lymph node metastasis.
CONCLUSION
Among the malignancy at the gastro oesophageal junction, squamous cell carcinoma with female dominance was more common than adenocarcinoma with male dominance. Most of the cases were with well differentiated tumours presenting at a late stage of the disease either T3 or T4 with low incidence of lymph node metastasis. Adenocarcinoma showed a low incidence of specialized intestinal metaplasia.
