SOMATOSTATIN RECEPTOR SCINTIGRAPHY AND TH ERAPY OF NEUROENDOCRINAL HEAD AND NECK TUMORS - FIRST EXPERIMENTS IN DIAGNOSTICS AND THERAPY WITHTHE SOMATOSTATIN ANALOG OCTREOTIDE

The development of a radiolabelled somatostatin analogue Indium-111-Pe ntetreotide makes the detection of somatostatin receptor-bearing tumou rs by scintigraphic techniques possible. The existence of high-affinit y binding sites for somatostatin has been described previously for mos t endocrine active tumours of the gastroenteropancreatic system (GEP), malignant lymphomas, small cell lung carcinomas, a subgroup of breast tumours and several types of neuroendocrine related human tumours. Us ing this new diagnostic tool we investigated some head and neck tumour s of neuroendocrine origin (carcinoid of larynx, Merkel cell carcinoma , paragangliomas) with the newly developed radiolabelled somatostatin analogue Indium-111-Pentetreotide whether in-vivo visualisation of som atostatin receptors might be possible. In cases not accessible for sur gery but with a positive receptor status we started a specific therapy with the somatostatin analogue octreotide. The preliminary results su ggest that this new isotopic scanning technique is a diagnostic tool a nd a predictive method for an effective therapy of those head and neck tumours which revealed highly specifically a positive receptor status . The therapeutical results using the somatostatin analogue octreotide indicate that this new concept is an ideal therapeutic strategy for t hose neuroendocrine head and neck tumours which cannot be controlled b y surgical procedures.