Abstract
BackgroundNeuroendocrine neoplasm is a rare solid tumor. Metastatic pattern of the gastrointestinal neuroendocrine neoplasm (GI‐NEN) has not been fully explored.MethodsData were obtained from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database (SEER‐9 registry) from 1973 to 2015. Incidence was estimated by Joinpoint regression analyses. Data with additional treatment fields of GI‐NEN were extracted from the SEER‐18 registry from 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2015. A total of 14 685 GI‐NEN patients were included in this study. Statistical analyses were performed with SPSS 25.0, the Intercooled Stata SE 15.0, and GraphPad Prism 7.ResultsIncidence of GI‐NENs increased from 0.51 per 100 000 patients in 1973 to 6.20 per 100 000 patients in 2015. Of them, 2003 patients were stage IV GI‐NEN at the time of diagnosis, including 1459 (72.84%) patients with liver metastasis, 144 (7.19%) lung metastasis, 115 (5.74%) bone metastasis, and 27 (1.35%) brain metastasis. Esophageal NEN had the highest risk of metastasis (52.68%). The median survival for patients with liver, lung, bone, and brain metastasis was 38, 6, 9, and 2 months, respectively. The presence of lung or liver metastasis indicated higher risk of concurrent existence of bone and brain metastasis than those without.ConclusionBone and brain metastasis should be screened in the GI‐NEN patients if they had lung or liver metastasis. Findings of the current study could help clinicians to identify distant metastasis of GI‐NENs as early as possible, and by which, to improve survival rate of GI‐NENs.
Highlights
Neuroendocrine neoplasms (NENs) are solid tumors that originate from neuroendocrine cells
The current study found that metastatic rate of gastrointestinal neuroendocrine neoplasm (GI‐NEN) to liver, lung, bone and brain at the time of diagnosis was 9.94%, 0.98%, 0.78%, and 0.18%, respectively, and that patients with lung or liver metastasis had a higher risk of co‐existing bone and brain metastasis at the same time than those without lung or liver metastasis
These findings suggested that metastasis of GI‐NEN to bone or brain be alerted if a GI‐NEN patient had liver or lung metastasis
Summary
Neuroendocrine neoplasms (NENs) are solid tumors that originate from neuroendocrine cells. Metastases have become the main reason causing cancer‐related death of NENs. Previous studies revealed that 13.17% of GI‐NENs were diagnosed at stage IV once metastasis was noticed.[5] Liver is the most common metastatic site of GI‐NENs, followed by the lung, bone and brain.[6,7] Brain metastasis from GI‐NENs is rare, and most of our knowledge on bone or brain metastasis from GI‐NENs come from case reports.[8] Due to the limitation of sample size, studies describing the epidemiology, risk factors, and survival of metastatic GI‐NENs are limited. The study was aimed to analyze the metastatic spectrum of primary site‐specific metastases of GI‐NENs in SEER program from 2010 to 2015, and to search for possible risk factors of metastasis. Providing statistical evidence for metastatic patterns of GI‐NENs may help physicians to make better decision at pretreatment evaluation stage
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
