title: Endocrine hyperplasia and dysplasia in the pathogenesis of gastrointestinal and pancreatic endocrine tumors.
abstract: Non-neoplastic proliferative lesions of endocrine cells have been described throughout the gastrointestinal tract and pancreas. A multistep continuum from hyperplasia and dysplasia to neoplasia originally was identified and systematically defined for histamine-producing enterochromaffin-like (ECL) cells of the gastric corpus. More recently, a similar classification system was devised for gastrin (G)- and somatostatin (D)-producing cells in the duodenum. Preneoplastic lesions of the endocrine pancreas still lack a solid and widely accepted definition of a multistep growth process. Similarly, in spite of reports of carcinoid-associated endocrine cell hyperplasia, there is no systematic definition of nonneoplastic lesions of the endocrine cells of the ileum, appendix and colorectum.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Parma, I-43100 Parma, Italy. guido.rindi@unipr.it
authors.forename: Guido
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rindi
authors.forename: Enrico
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Solcia
mesh_terms: D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005770:Gastrointestinal Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D006965:Hyperplasia / Q000473:pathology; D010190:Pancreatic Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D011230:Precancerous Conditions / Q000473:pathology*; D012307:Risk Factors