Patients with gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors often present with metastases. Identification of the primary tumor is important for operative management, and therefore we sought to determine our success at identifying primary tumors with diagnostic testing and operative exploration.
A clinical neuroendocrine tumor database was reviewed to identify patients presenting with metastases and primary tumor in situ. Results of radiologic, endoscopic, and operative procedures were evaluated to determine which correctly identified the primary tumor.
There were 197 patients presenting with metastases and unresected primaries, 134 who had an operation and 63 managed nonoperatively. Primaries were identified preoperatively in 168 (84%), at operative exploration in 7, and were not found in 22 patients. Computed tomography found 150/197 primary tumors, somatostatin-receptor scintigraphy 88/155, and endoscopy 43/107. The sensitivity of computed tomography surpassed scintigraphy (76% vs 57%, P < .01). The primary was removed in 130/134 (97%) patients, and hepatic debulking was performed in 67%. Median survival for operative patients with small bowel and pancreatic tumors was 145 and 71 months, respectively.
Imaging and endoscopy identified the primary tumor in most patients, and the majority of the others were found at exploration. Preoperative testing facilitated operative planning, allowing for resection of the primary and hepatic debulking in most patients.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 22 December 2016.
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#19,944,994
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#5,034
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#227,818
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#91
of 157 outputs
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