Endoscopic therapy for gastroduodenal neuroendocrine neoplasms

Abstract

Neuroendocrine neoplasms (NEN) represent a group of potentially malignant tumors, which can be located in every section of the gastrointestinal tract, the pancreas and the bronchopulmonary system. Gastroduodenal NENs have a relatively good prognosis in comparison to other subentities, e.g. pancreatic or ileojejunal NENs. In the stomach there are four different types of NENs, while in the duodenum there are five types and all vary in the malignant potential and the therapeutic approach. Due to the simple access endoscopic methods not only have diagnostic but also important therapeutic relevance in this subgroup. Lesions smaller than 1cm can easily be resected with forceps or snare resection and for larger lesions up to 2cm more invasive strategies, such as endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR) or endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) are available. Important criteria in gastric NEN for the risk evaluation of endoscopic treatment alone are the size of the lesion, depth of invasion and the tumor biology, e.g. neuroendocrine tumor (NET) G1/G2 versus neuroendocrine carcinoma (NEC) G3. In duodenal NEN the aforementioned risk factors also apply and in addition only lesions outside the ampulla of Vater should be endoscopically resected whereas periampullary lesions need to be addressed surgically. As an individualized therapeutic approach the possibility of a combined endoscopic and laparoscopic resection technique exists. Follow-up endoscopic investigations are necessary, especially in gastric type 1 NENs, which have a tendency to relapse.