Introduction: The frequency of gastric neuroendocrine tumors is increasing. Reasons are the popularization of endoscopy and its technical refinements. Despite this, they are still poorly understood and have complex management. Aim: Update the knowledge on gastric neuroendocrine tumor and expose the future perspectives on the diagnosis and treatment of this disease. Method: Literature review using the following databases: Medline/PubMed, Cochrane Library and SciELO. Search terms were: gastric carcinoid, gastric neuroendocrine tumor, treatment. From the selected articles, 38 were included in this review. Results: Gastric neuroendocrine tumors are classified in four clinical types. Correct identification of the clinical type and histological grade is fundamental, since treatment varies accordingly and defines survival. Conclusion: Gastric neuroendocrine tumors comprise different subtypes with distinct management and prognosis. Correct identification allows for a tailored therapy. Further studies will clarify the diseases biology and improve its treatment.

NCT01693172.

Background: Despite recent advances in diagnosis and treatment, esophageal cancer still has high mortality. Prognostic factors associated with patient and with disease itself are multiple and poorly explored. Aim: Assess prognostic variables in esophageal cancer patients. Methods: Retrospective review of all patients with esophageal cancer in an oncology referral center. They were divided according to histological diagnosis (444 squamous cell carcinoma patients and 105 adenocarcinoma), and their demographic, pathological and clinical characteristics were analyzed and compared to clinical stage and overall survival. Results: No difference was noted between squamous cell carcinoma and esophageal adenocarcinoma overall survival curves. Squamous cell carcinoma presented 22.8% survival after five years against 20.2% for adenocarcinoma. When considering only patients treated with curative intent resection, after five years squamous cell carcinoma survival rate was 56.6 and adenocarcinoma, 58%. In patients with squamous cell carcinoma, poor differentiation histology and tumor size were associated with worse oncology stage, but this was not evidenced in adenocarcinoma. Conclusion: Weight loss (kg), BMI variation (kg/m²) and percentage of weight loss are factors that predict worse stage at diagnosis in the squamous cell carcinoma. In adenocarcinoma, these findings were not statistically significant.

Background Pathological examination of a minimum of 16 lymph nodes is recommended following surgery for gastric adenocarcinoma, despite this a longer survival is expected when 30 or more lymph nodes are examined. Small lymph nodes are difficult to identify, and fat-clearing solutions have been proposed to improve this, but there is no evidence of their clinical benefit. Methods Fifty D2 subtotal gastrectomy specimens were randomized for fixation in Carnoy's solution (CS) or 10 % neutral buffered formalin (NBF), with subsequent fat dissection. After dissection, the residual fat from the NBF group, instead of being discarded, was immersed in CS and dissected again. Data from 25 D2 subtotal gastrectomies performed before the study were also analyzed. Results The mean number of examined lymph nodes was 50.4 and 34.8 for CS and NBF, respectively (p \ 0.001). Missing lymph nodes were found in all cases from the residual fat group (mean of 16.9), and in eight of them (32 %) metastatic lymph nodes were present; this allowed the upstaging of two patients. Lymph nodes in the CS group were smaller than those in the NBF group (p = 0.01). The number of retrieved lymph nodes was similar among the NBF and Retrospective groups (p = 0.802). Conclusions Compared with NBF, CS increases lymph node detection following gastrectomy and allows a more accurate pathological staging. No influence of the research protocol on the number of examined lymph nodes was observed.