Prognostic factors and survival in patients with neuroendocrine tumors of the pancreas

Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PNETs) are uncommon malignancies. The purpose of this study was to identify the prognostic factors of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors at a single center in China. Clinical data of 27 patients with PNETs treated at the Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center between January 1995 and December 2010 were retrospectively reviewed. Survival was estimated with the Kaplan-Meier methodology. Twenty-three patients (85.2%) had nonfunctional tumors and four patients (14.8%) had functional tumors. The majority of PNETs located in the body and/or tail of the pancreas in 20 patients (74.1%). All Patients with functional tumors cause syndromes related to hormone overproduction. Anorexia, nausea, vomiting, obstructive jaundice, weight loss, and incidental mass were more common in patients with nonfunctional tumors. The median follow-up time was 40 months. The overall 1-, 2-, and 5-year accumulative survival rates were 91%, 81%, and 81%, respectively. In univariate analysis, factors associating with significantly better survival included macroscopically radical resection of the primary tumor, tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) staging, World Health Organization (WHO) classification, and palliative chemotherapy. Macroscopically radical resection of the primary tumor, TNM staging, WHO classification, and palliative chemotherapy were prognostic variables which may emerge as a practical clinical tool to predict survival.