The authors report about a retrospective series of 19 operated patients with adenocarcinomas in a columnar lined esophagus. The resection rate was 95%, the postoperative mortality rate was 5.5%. The survival rate following curative exeresis (n = 14) was 32% (+/- 14) at 5 years. All patients with a stage III lesion died after 2 years, while 46% (+/- 19) of those with stage I or II tumors (p less than 0.001) survived at 5 years. In a multivariative analysis, the most important prognostic factor is the histological grade (p less than 0.01), then the extension to the lymph nodes (p less than 0.1). As the adenocarcinoma often reveals the columnar lined esophagus, the improvement of the prognosis certainly depends on the evaluation of the treatment, which combines pre- or postoperative radiation and chemotherapy, in multidepartmental prospective studies.