PALLIATIVE TREATMENT OF NEUROENDOCRINE TUMORS

Effective palliation of patients with incurable neuroendocrine tumors requires both control of hormonal overproduction symptoms as well as c ontrol of tumor growth. Several important advances have been made in r ecent years toward these two goals. Octreotide and omeprazole have bot h been extremely effective in ameliorating hormonal symptoms of carcin oids, islet cell tumors and medullary thyroid carcinoma. Newer cytotox ic chemotherapy regimens and interferon have increased response rates over traditional therapy. More aggressive surgical extirpation of meta static disease has also been beneficial. (C) 1993 Wiley-Liss, Inc.