Expression of alpha-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-tissue array, with reactive and neoplastic samples for each patient to analyze the immunoreactivity of AMACR. Barrett's epithelium that was negative for dysplasia and columnar epithelial cell changes indefinite for dysplasia (n=30) did not demonstrate AMACR immunoreactivity. AMACR immunoreactivity was demonstrated in 27% (8/30) of cases of Barrett's epithelium with columnar epithelial cell changes indefinite for dysplasia. Altogether 91% of cases with low-grade dysplasia were AMACR-positive and 96% of cases with high-grade dysplasia and early Barrett's adenocarcinoma were positive for AMACR. In summary, the sensitivity of AMACR expression in low-grade dysplasia and subsequent early Barrett's adenocarcinoma was significantly higher in our study compared with previous data. This might be a new diagnostic marker for dysplasia carcinoma sequence in Barrett's low-grade neoplastic lesions. Further studies are required to investigate this point with well-defined controls having at least 5-years follow-up.