Clinical analysis of 547 patients with neuroendocrine tumors in a Chinese population: A single‐center study

Abstract

Background Neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) are rare, which has resulted in a lack of published data on their epidemiology and clinical features. We therefore aimed to investigate the epidemiology, clinical features, treatments, and prognosis of patients with NETs. Methods The clinicopathologic characteristics of 547 patients who were pathologically diagnosed with NETs were retrospectively analyzed, including age, sex, primary and metastatic sites, symptoms, pathology, treatment, and prognosis. Results The 547 patients had a wide age range (9‐87 years), with a male to female ratio of 1:1.1. The primary tumor sites included 413 in the digestive system, 74 in the lung, 15 in the mediastinum, 8 in unknown sites, and 37 in other sites. Of the 413 patients with digestive system NETs, the pancreas, rectum, and stomach were the most common primary sites. Blood metastases were found in 84 patients at initial diagnosis, and the liver, bone, and lung were the most frequent sites of metastasis. Lymph node metastases were found in 82 patients at initial diagnosis. Surgery and chemotherapy were the most widely applied treatments. Statistical analysis showed that age <50 years, female sex, lower‐grade tumor, no distant metastasis, intestinal NET and surgery indicated a favorable prognosis. Conclusions A difference between China and other countries is that small intestinal NETs are quite common in other countries but are rare in China. In China, the most common primary sites are the pancreas, rectum, and stomach. Furthermore, no unified treatments exist, though prognoses could be improved by using methods such as surgery, targeted therapies, and somatostatin analogs. Clinical Trial Registration This study was not a clinical trial.

Clinicopathological heterogeneity between primary and metastatic sites of gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasm

“…In the SEER database, the rectum and small intestine are the most common sites of GEP-NENs [2,3]. Our results showed that the pancreas, rectum and stomach were the most common sites, which were consistent with the results of a large retrospective single-center study in China [17]. We found that the metastasis rate of patients with GEP-NENs was 39.9%, and the most common site of distant metastasis was the liver.…”

Risk of malignancy and prognosis of sporadic resected small (≤2 cm) nonfunctional pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors

“…(24). However, some reports have indicated that small tumors can recur or metastasize, and as tumor size was not significantly associated with the prognosis of NF-PNETs (17,25,26). Consistent with the previous reports, 3 of 28 small tumors in our study recurred and metastasized.…”

Clinicopathological Characteristics of Gastroenteropancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors

“…It was the small intestine, rectum, and pancreas in the United States, and the small intestine, appendix, and pancreas in Norway. 12 In another study conducted in our country, the most common primary site was the stomach (36.7%). This was followed by the pancreas (30.5%), small intestine and appendix (15.6%), and colon (7%).…”