ADENOCARCINOID OF THE STOMACH - A MALIGNANT-TUMOR ARISING IN THE CARDIA OR IN THE CORPUS-ANTRUM BORDER

The term adenocarcinoid, originally used to denote a distinct category of appendicular tumours possessing histologic features of both carcin oid and adenocarcinoma, has been sporadically applied also to rumours arising elsewhere in the gastrointestinal tract, including the stomach . Eight retrospective cases of gastric tumours displaying argyrophilia and mucin production in at least 30% of the cells were reevaluated cl inically, pathologically, and immunocytochemically. The patients were prevalently males, over 60 years, of blood group 0, and their median s urvival was 21 months. The tumours seemed to arise from the two transi tional zones (cardia and corpus-antrum border), were usually greater t han 20 mm, deeply infiltrating, and presented with regional nodal meta stases. On H&E sections, they resembled common adenocarcinomas, typica l or atypical carcinoids. Cardiac adenocarcinoids were characterized b y strong neuroendocrine differentiation and PYY immunoreactivity; thos e from the corpus-antrum border showed a moderate neuroendocrine diffe rentiation and reactivity for bcl-2. Our work demonstrates that gastri c adenocarcinoids arise from the cardia or corpus-antrum border. Their actual prevalence can be underscored because of the lack of peculiar morphologic features in most cases. Only the collection of a larger nu mber of cases will permit their characterization as a clinical entity.