Surgery, Gastroenterology and Oncology

Background: Surgery is still the only curative treatment for patients with pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours (pNETs). Prognosis depends mainly on tumour characteristics.

Methods: The single-centred retrospective cohort study consisted of 58 patients with a histological confirmation of pNET, who were operated over a time span of 10 years. The analysis is focused on the type of surgery, post-operative morbidity, survival rates and prognostic factors.

Results: Median age at diagnosis was 53.28 years (SD 9.85; 21-81). The operative interventions performed were radical in 79.31% of the patients and palliative in 20.69 % of them, respectively. The overall survival rate was 63.41 months for the non-functioning pNETs versus 128.21 months for the functioning pNETs (Log Rank test, p=0.036). Upon applying Cox-regression, the only factors that were found as statistically significant predictors of poor outcome were non-functional status, distant metastases, vascular resection and lymphovascular invasion.

Conclusions: Radical surgery must be considered in all cases when it is oncologically consistent and technically achievable. Non-functional status, distant metastases, vascular resection and lymphovascular invasion are found to be associated with decreased survival.

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