Aggressive surgery for metastatic liver neuroendocrine tumors.

BACKGROUND: Neuroendocrine tumors of the gastrointestinal tract (carcinoids, pancreatic endocrine tumors) have low malignant potential but can decrease survival rates if they spread to the liver (LNET).
METHODS: The records of 16 patients with LNET primarily from gastrointestinal carcinoids treated surgically were retrospectively reviewed.
RESULTS: There were 12 women and 4 men. Median age was 56 years (range 25 to 75). Thirteen (81%) had a carcinoid tumor and 5 had gastrinoma. Two patients with multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 had both a gastric carcinoid and a jejunal gastrinoma. Eight patients (50%) had the carcinoid syndrome. Each patient had all identifiable LNET either resected or ablated. Ten patients had liver wedge resections, 1 right trisegmentectomy, 5 left hepatic lobectomies, and 2 radiofrequency ablations. Thirteen (81%) patients had concomitant bowel resections. Two patients had concomitant total gastrectomies to remove stomach primaries. The final patient had an extraintestinal pelvic primary or a liver primary. There were no operative deaths, and all 8 (100%) patients with the carcinoid syndrome had amelioration of symptoms. The 5-year actuarial survival rate was 82% with a median follow-up of 32 months.
CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates that liver and concomitant extrahepatic surgery can be performed safely in patients with liver metastases because of carcinoids or pancreatic endocrine tumors. It results in excellent long-term survival and amelioration of symptoms. Surgery should be the first-line therapy for patients with LNET.