Abstract:
Objective: To analyze the clinicopathological characteristics and outcomes of gastric neuroendocrine neoplasms.
Methods: The clinical and pathological data of 52 patients with gastric neuroendocrine neoplasms admitted to our hospital in recent 11 years were retrospectively analyzed.
Results: There were 38 males and 12 females in the whole group, with average age of 54 years. According to the new WHO classification (2010) of neuroendocrine neoplasms, there were 19 cases of neuroendocrine tumor (NET) (12 cases of G1 and 7 cases of G2), 29 cases of neuroendocrine carcinoma (NEC) and 4 cases of mixed adenoneuroendocrine carcinoma (MANEC). The lesions of the patients were located on the cardia/fundus (n=31, 59.6%), corpus (n=11, 21.2%) and antrum (n=10, 19.2%) of the stomach, respectively. The main clinical manifestations were epigastric distension/discomfort and dysphagia. Fifty patients underwent surgical treatment. Among the NET patients, 5 cases underwent endoscopic excision, 3 cases underwent local full-thickness excision of the gastric wall and 11 cases underwent radical gastrectomy, and the postoperative pathology demonstrated that the lesions of 14 cases were confined to the mucosal or submucosal layer (73.7%), 4 cases had lymph node metastases (21.1%) and intravascular tumor thrombus occurred in 1 case (5.3%). Among the NEC and MANEC patients, 17 cases underwent open radical gastrectomy,13 cases underwent palliative surgical treatment and 1 case had a surgical exploration only, and the postoperative pathology showed that the lesions of 29 cases infiltrated or penetrated the serosal layer (96.7%), 27 cases had lymph node metastases (90%) and intravascular tumor thrombi were found in 16 cases (53.3%). The follow-up period ranged from 2 to 106 months. Of the 19 NET patients, 2 cases had local recurrence (10.5%), 3 cases had distant metastases (5.8%) and 2 cases died (10.5%), and the 1, 3, 5-year survival rate was 100%, 89% and 82%, respectively; of the 29 NEC patients, 1 case had local recurrence (3.4%), 25 cases had distant metastases (86.2%) and 21 cases died (72.4%), and the 1, 3, 5-year survival rate was 69%, 43% and 21%, respectively; of the 4 MANEC patients, distant metastases occurred in 3 cases and 3 cases died.
Conclusion: The clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis of gastric neuroendocrine neoplasms vary considerably among different types. Most NETs are of early stage disease and have favorable therapeutic efficacy. However, NECs and MANECs are of a high degree of malignancy and invasiveness, and have a poor prognosis.