Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Radiol. May 28, 2015; 7(5): 104-109
Published online May 28, 2015. doi: 10.4329/wjr.v7.i5.104
Diagnosis of prostatic neuroendocrine carcinoma: Two cases report and literature review
Hai-Qing He, Shu-Feng Fan, Qiong Xu, Zhen-Jing Chen, Zheng Li
Hai-Qing He, Radiology Department, Enze Hospital, Taizhou 318000, Zhejiang Province, China
Hai-Qing He, Shu-Feng Fan, Zhen-Jing Chen, Radiology Department, Taizhou Hospital affiliated to Wenzhou Medical University, Linhai 317000, Zhejiang Province, China
Qiong Xu, Radiology Department, Women’s Hospital School of Medicine Zhejiang University, HangZhou 310006, Zhejiang Province, China
Zheng Li, VIP Department, Taizhou Hospital affiliated to Wenzhou Medical University, Linhai 317000, Zhejiang Province, China
Author contributions: Fan SF conceived and designed the study, and made critical revisions related to important intellectual content of the manuscript; He HQ performed acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data; Xu Q and Chen ZJ drafted, reviewed and edited the manuscript; Li Z performed the survey, follow-up and summarize; all authors had read and approved the version of the article to be published.
Supported by Zhejiang Medical Science and Technology Program funded projects, No. 08B195.
Ethics approval: The study was reviewed and approved by the Taizhou Hospital (Linhai, Zhejiang Province, China) Institutional Review Board.
Informed consent: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest: All authors of the paper declare having no conflicting interests (including but not limited to commercial, personal, political, intellectual, or religious interests) in the title page that are related to the work submitted for consideration of publication.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Shu-Feng Fan, MD, Radiology Department, Taizhou Hospital affiliated to Wenzhou Medical University, #150 Ximen Street, Linhai 317000, Zhejiang Province, China. shufengfan@163.com
Telephone: +86-576-85199360 Fax: +86-576-85199876
Received: January 2, 2015
Peer-review started: January 7, 2015
First decision: March 20, 2015
Revised: April 24, 2015
Accepted: April 28, 2015
Article in press: April 30, 2015
Published online: May 28, 2015
Processing time: 146 Days and 16.3 Hours
Abstract

Two cases of prostatic neuroendocrine carcinoma (PNEC) imaged by computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and literature review are presented. Early enhanced CT, MRI, especially diffusion-weighted image were emphasized, the complementary roles of ultrasound, CT, MRI, clinical and laboratory characteristic’s features in achieving accurate diagnosis were valued in the preoperative diagnosis of PNEC.

Keywords: Magnetic resonance imaging; Computed tomography; Neuroendocrine carcinoma; Diagnosis; Prostate

Core tip: Prostatic neuroendocrine carcinoma (PNEC) comprised 0.5%-2% of all prostate carcinoma, commonly presents with lymph node, bone, or organ metastases and has a poor prognosis when a definite diagnosis was given in clinic. Our cases and literature suggest it is usually insufficient that the prostate is examined by ultrasound and computed tomography (CT), or prostate specific antigen in serum for the symptomatic and/or with high risk factors crowd. Emphasizing the complementary roles of the malignant signs in diffusion-weighted image, early enhancement in CT or magnetic resonance imaging, self-contradictory clinical appearance and laboratory results can help achieving the accurate diagnosis of PNEC, maybe in early stage.