title: Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors: a comprehensive review.
abstract: Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) are a heterogeneous group of tumors. Despite being relatively rare, representing just 1-2% of all pancreatic neoplasms, the incidence of pancreatic NET has increased over the past two decades. Although the primary treatment for localized NET is surgical resection, there is still a lack of effective therapeutic options for patients with advanced unresectable pancreatic NET. Recently, the targeted agents sunitinib malate (SUTENT®, Pfizer Inc, NYC) and everolimus (AFINITOR®, Novartis, Basel, Switzerland)-both with different mechanisms of action-received United States Food and Drug Administration approval for the treatment of progressive, well-differentiated, pancreatic NET in patients with unresectable, locally advanced or metastatic disease. SUTENT® also received approval for this indication by the European Commission in 2010. Our article presents an overview of pancreatic NET, with a focus on their diagnostic work-up, clinical presentation and treatment options. Topics for further investigation of targeted therapy are also discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Shanghai Institute of Digestive Surgery, Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Chenfei
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Zhenggang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhu
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D018358:Neuroendocrine Tumors / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000628:therapy*; D010190:Pancreatic Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000628:therapy*; D011379:Prognosis