Siewert's classification of adenocarcinoma of the esophagogastric junction (AEG) has been widely adopted, but there is a wide discrepancy of the clinicopathological features of AEG of the Asian patients as compared to that of the Western patients. The aim of this study was to investigate the clinicopathological characteristics of AEG according to the Siewert classification.

Among the patients who underwent surgery for gastric carcinoma in our institution between May 2004 and February 2008, the AEG patients were selected based on their operation records and the photographs according to Siewert's classification.

There were 70 AEG patients (3.9%) among the total of 1,778 patients. There were 3 patients (4.3%) with type I, 30 patients (42.8%) with type II and 37 patients (52.8%) with type III. Curative resection (R0) was achieved in 68 cases (97.1%). No significant differences in gender, stage, Barrett's esophagus and the proximal margin were found between the patients with type II and type III AEG. The patients with type III were younger than the patients with type II (59 vs 64 years, respectively, P=0.049). Well differentiated histology (P=0.045) and the intestinal type (P=0.055) were significantly more frequent in the patients with type II as compared with that in the patients with type III.

There was a striking difference of the Asian patients from the Western patients for the incidence of AEG (and especially type I). Some of the differences between type II and type III patients were similar to those of the previous Western studies. A large study is needed to investigate whether these features are typical in the Korean population.