Onkológia 5/2017

Systemic therapy of gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors

Neuroendocrine tumors are rare and heterogeneous group of diseases. Incidence and prevalence have been increasing over the last decades. The clinical course of patients with metastatic NETs is highly variable. The treatment is evolving and changing in the recent years. Symptoms of hormone hypersecretion can usually be treated effectively with somatostatin analogs. Systemic therapy is one of a number of treatment options routinely used in the management of advanced, unresectable neuroendocrine tumors (NETs). In contrast to many of the other NET treatment modalities, there is at least some evidence base to justify its use. Even so, well-designed clinical trials are limited, since conducting clinical research in this complex group of rare cancers is challenging. The molecular biology of NETs is now step by step being unravelled, which affords new opportunities for development of targeted therapies.

Keywords: neuroendocrine tumors, systemic therapy, somatostatine analogues, interferon, everolimus, sunitinib