If this is not your name, click here.
| | If this is not your name, click here. | | |
| | Contact Us | Order Now | Journals | Bookstore | Register a colleague | | |
| |  CT Useful for Detecting Recurrent Disease After Resection of Pulmonary Carcinoids: Presented at ENETS By Karen Dente, MD BERLIN -- March 16, 2010 -- An annual computed tomography (CT) scan may be a useful tool for detecting recurrence in patients who have undergone resection of primary pulmonary carcinoids, according to a study presented here at the 7th European Neuroendocrine Tumor Society Conference (ENETS). The study, conducted by a team of investigators led by Michela Squadroni, MD, European Institute of Oncology, Milan, Italy, was presented March 12. “Pulmonary typical and atypical carcinoids are widely considered indolent; although, they can metastasise even with a very long relapse-free interval,” according to Dr. Squadroni and colleagues. No standard follow-up strategy exists after a radical resection. In this retrospective study, investigators reviewed data from 140 patients who underwent surgical resection for pulmonary carcinoid from October 1998 to April 2009 at the European Institute of Oncology. At diagnosis, most patients had stage I disease (76%), 8% had stage II disease, 10% had stage III disease, and 4% had stage IV disease. Twenty percent had regional nodal metastases. Surgery consisted of lobectomy, bilobectomy, pneumonectomy, and tumour resection. Histological diagnosis was typical in 62% and atypical carcinoid in 38% of the cases. All patients were followed-up with an annual chest and abdomen CT scan. Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), chromogranin A (CgA), neuron-specific enolase (NSE) determinations, and FDG-PET were performed in certain individuals. Among the 134 patients with local disease (stages I-III), 10% (n = 14) relapsed 12 to 68 months after surgery. “The recurrences were detected based on a CgA increase and confirmed with a CT and somatostatin receptor scintigraphy in three patients, and [confirmed] directly with a periodical CT in the remaining 11 patients,” the study authors note. The majority (86%) of these relapses occurred in patients with atypical carcinoid. Histological confirmation was confirmed in 43% of relapses. Sites of metastases were liver (57%), lung (28%), pleura (21%), bone (21%), and brain (4%). In 14% of the cases, the sites of metastases were not specified. “These data suggest a role of CT in the follow-up of resected pulmonary carcinoids,” the investigators conclude. They also recommend that histological confirmation of recurrent disease always be performed if technicaly possible, due to the long time to recurrence and high incidence of other tumours. [Presentation title: Recurrence Characteristics in Resected Pulmonary Typcial and Atypical Carcinoids. Abstract C96]
|
