Implementation of multidisciplinary team in the diagnosis and treatment of gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasm

Abstract

Multidisciplinary team(MDT) has been considered as the best practice in the treatment planning and care for patients with cancer around the world. With the increased range and number of specialists involved, multidisciplinary coordination and communication have been enhanced, and the efficiency and quality of diagnosis and treatment of cancer have been improved. Neuroendocrine neoplasm (NEN) is a heterogeneous group of tumors originating from neuroendocrine cells located throughout the body, most of which is gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasm (GEP-NEN). Due to the low incidence of GEP-NEN, the knowledge of such rare disease went through a long way of exploration, and a large number of unresolved issues still plagued the clinicians. An effective diagnosis of GEP-NEN requires a multimodal approach that combines evaluation of clinical symptoms and hormone levels, radiological and nuclear imaging, and histological confirmation. The treatment is complex, including surgery, oncology, radiotherapy,peptide receptor radionuclide treatment (PRRT) and interventional therapy, so MDT model should play an important role in the diagnosis and treatment of GEP-NEN to maximize the integration of multidisciplinary resources and improve the life quality as well as survival. A NEN-MDT was organized in 2013 by the Beijing Cancer Hospital, including oncology, surgery, pathology, nuclear medicine and radiology. This paper investigates the significance and management in the implementation of MDT model in the diagnosis and treatment of GEP-NEN, based on the experience of MDT operation in our center.