Prolonged Radiographic Stabilization of a Metastatic Octreotide Scan-Positive Poorly Differentiated Neuroendocrine Tumor Using Octreotide Acetate Therapy Alone

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Pancreatic poorly differentiated neuroendocrine tumors (PDNETs) are a subtype of neuroendocrine Tumors (NETs) clinically distinguished by their much more rapid growth and immunohistochemically diagnosed by having a higher Ki-67 cancer cell staining percentage compared to their well or intermediately differentiated NET counterparts. While standard first line treatment for metastatic well or intermediately differentiated pancreatic NETs typically involves octreotide acetate therapy, here I report, to my knowledge, the first case of a patient with a pancreatic PDNET with radiographic stabilization of his disease with octreotide acetate use alone. Octreotide acetate was chosen after first establishing that, based on his octreotide scan, receptors might be targeted using the octreotide analog.