Concomitant lung and gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors and the value of gallium-68 PET/CT

Well-differentiated neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) of the lung occur as typical and atypical carcinoids. Little is known about the biology of these tumors in respect of their ability to metastasize or the probability of development of concomitant neuroendocrine tumors. Here we report a patient diagnosed with a second neuroendocrine tumor of the ileum 4 years after curative resection of a typical carcinoid of the left lung. The intestinal neuroendocrine tumor was successfully detected by gallium-68 based somatostatin receptor positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) and surgically removed using gamma probe detection based on the same labeling. This case report underlines the utility of somatostatin receptor PET/CT based detection and follow-up of NETs.