Well differentiated gastric adenocarcinoma with rhabdoid areas: a case report with immunohistochemical analysis

We describe the case of a 73-year-old patient with gastric adenocarcinoma composed of histologically well differentiated glandular areas, extensive rhabdoid zones and regions depicting a transition between these two constituents. The rhabdoid component showed typical features such as abundant eosinophilic cytoplasm, eccentric nuclei, prominent nucleoli, intense positive immunohistochemical cytoplasmic reaction for vimentin and less evident immunohistochemical for cytokeratin and epithelial membrane antigen (EMA). Our findings strongly suggest that the rhabdoid areas probably represent a phenotypic variant of a gastric adenocarcinoma, otherwise fairly well differentiated, a combination that to the best of our knowledge has not been previously reported.