OBJECTIVES:
to determine the prognostic factors that may impact on morbidity and mortality and survival of patients undergoing surgical treatment of liver metastases from neuroendocrine tumors.
METHODS:
We studied 22 patients undergoing liver resection for metastases from neuroendocrine tumors between 1997 and 2007. Epidemiological and clinical data were correlated with morbidity and mortality and overall and disease-free survivals.
RESULTS:
twelve patients were male and ten female, with a mean age of 48.5 years. Bilobar disease was present in 17 patients (77.3%). In ten patients (45.5%) the primary tumor originated in the pancreas, terminal ileum in eight, duodenum in two, rectum in one and jejunum in one. Complete surgical resection (R0) was achieved in 59.1% of patients. Eight patients (36.3%) developed complications in the immediate postoperative period, one of them dying from septicemia. All patients undergoing re-hepatectomy and/or two-stage hepatectomy had complications in the postoperative period. The overall survival at one and five years was 77.3% and 44.2%. The disease-free survival at five years was 13.6%. The primary pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor (p = 0.006) was associated with reduced overall survival. Patients with number of metastatic nodules < 10 (p = 0.03) and asymptomatic at diagnosis (p = 0.015) had higher disease-free survival.
CONCLUSION:
liver metastases originating from pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors proved to be a negative prognostic factor. Symptomatic patients with multiple metastatic nodules showed a significant reduction in disease-free survival.
Neuroendocrine Tumors; Hepatectomy; Survival Analysis; Neoplasm Metastasis
