The multidisciplinary team for gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumours: the radiologist’s challenge
Article Category: Review
Published Online: Oct 25, 2019
Page range: 373 - 387
Received: Mar 30, 2019
Accepted: Jul 15, 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/raon-2019-0040
© 2019 Vincenza Granata, Roberta Fusco, Sergio Venanzio Setola, Elisabetta de Lutio di Castelguidone, Luigi Camera, Salvatore Tafuto, Antonio Avallone, Andrea Belli, Paola Incollingo, Raffaele Palaia, Francesco Izzo, Antonella Petrillo, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.
Background
Gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumours (GEP-NETs) are a heterogeneous group of tumours. An effective diagnosis requires a multimodal approach that combines evaluation of clinical symptoms, hormonelevels, radiological and nuclear imaging, and histological confirmation. Imaging plays a critical role in NETs diagnosis, prognosis and management, so the radiologists are important members of the multidisciplinary team. During diagnostic work-up two critical issues are present: firstly the need to identify tumor presence and secondly to define the primary site and assess regional and distant metastases.
Conclusions
The most appropriate imaging technique depends on the type of neuroendocrine tumour and the availability of specialized imaging techniques and expertise. There is no general consensus on the most efficient imaging pathway, reflecting the challenge in reliably detection of these tumours.