Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Oncol. Jun 10, 2017; 8(3): 293-299
Published online Jun 10, 2017. doi: 10.5306/wjco.v8.i3.293
Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor Grade 1 patients followed up without surgery: Case series
Mitsuru Sugimoto, Tadayuki Takagi, Rei Suzuki, Naoki Konno, Hiroyuki Asama, Ko Watanabe, Jun Nakamura, Hitomi Kikuchi, Yuichi Waragai, Mika Takasumi, Satoshi Kawana, Yuko Hashimoto, Takuto Hikichi, Hiromasa Ohira
Mitsuru Sugimoto, Tadayuki Takagi, Rei Suzuki, Naoki Konno, Hiroyuki Asama, Ko Watanabe, Jun Nakamura, Hitomi Kikuchi, Yuichi Waragai, Mika Takasumi, Hiromasa Ohira, Department of Gastroenterology, Fukushima Medical University, School of Medicine, Fukushima City, Fukushima Prefecture 960-1295, Japan
Naoki Konno, Ko Watanabe, Jun Nakamura, Hitomi Kikuchi, Takuto Hikichi, Department of Endoscopy, Fukushima Medical University Hospital, Fukushima City, Fukushima Prefecture 960-1295, Japan
Satoshi Kawana, Yuko Hashimoto, Department of Diagnostic Pathology, Fukushima Medical University, School of Medicine, Fukushima City, Fukushima Prefecture 960-1295, Japan
Author contributions: Sugimoto M designed and performed the research and wrote the paper; Takagi T and Suzuki R designed the research and supervised the report; Konno N designed the research and contributed to the analysis; Asama H, Watanabe K, Nakamura J, Kikuchi H, Waragai Y and Takasumi M provided clinical advice; Kawana S and Hashimoto Y provided histopathological advice; Hikichi T and Ohira H supervised the report.
Institutional review board statement: This study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of the Fukushima Medical University Hospital.
Informed consent statement: Patients were not required to give informed consent for the study because the analysis used anonymous clinical data that were obtained after each patient agreed to treatment by written consent. For full disclosure, the details of the study are published on the home page of Fukushima Medical University.
Conflict-of-interest statement: We have no financial relationships to disclose.
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: Tadayuki Takagi, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Gastroenterology, Fukushima Medical University, School of Medicine, 1 Hikarigaoka, Fukushima City, Fukushima Prefecture 960-1295, Japan. daccho@fmu.ac.jp
Telephone: +81-24-5471202 Fax: +81-24-5472055
Received: September 7, 2016
Peer-review started: September 9, 2016
First decision: October 20, 2016
Revised: February 25, 2017
Accepted: March 16, 2017
Article in press: March 17, 2017
Published online: June 10, 2017
Processing time: 267 Days and 7.6 Hours
Abstract

Among the three grades of neuroendocrine tumors (NETs), the prognosis for Grade 1 (G1) with surgery is very good. Therefore, we evaluated the prognoses of pancreatic NET (PNET) G1 patients without surgery. A total of 8 patients who were diagnosed with NET G1, with an observation period of more than 6 mo until surgery or without surgery, were recruited. The patients who underwent surgery were ultimately diagnosed using specimens obtained during the surgery, whereas the patients who did not undergo surgery were diagnosed using specimens obtained by endoscopic ultrasonography-guided fine needle aspiration. Overall, we mainly evaluated the observation period and tumor growth. The observation period for the five cases with surgery ranged from 6-80 mo, and tumor growth was observed in one case. In contrast, the observation period for the three cases without surgery ranged from 17-54 mo, and tumor growth was not observed. Therefore, although the first-choice treatment for NETs is surgery, our experience includes certain NET G1 patients who were followed up without surgery.

Keywords: Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors; Metastasis; Neuroendocrine tumors Grade 1; Follow-up; Surgery

Core tip: We evaluated the prognoses of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor Grade 1 (NET G1) patients without surgery. A total of 8 patients who were diagnosed with NET G1, with an observation period of more than 6 mo until surgery or without surgery, were recruited. The observation period for the five cases with surgery ranged from 6-80 mo, and tumor growth was observed in one case. In contrast, the observation period for the three cases without surgery ranged from 17-54 mo, and tumor growth was not observed. Our experience thus includes certain NET G1 patients who were followed up without surgery.