Characterization of patients with neuroendocrine tumors in a referral hospital

Introduction. Neuroendocrine tumors comprise a broad family of tumors, the most common being those located in the gastrointestinal tract, lungs, thymus, and pancreas. They occur infrequently and have a variable biological behavior. The objective of this study was to describe the demographic and clinical characteristics of patients with this entity in a highly complex hospital. Methods. Descriptive study with review of medical records corresponding to patients with neuroendocrine tu-mors, whose histological sample was analyzed in the Pathology Department of the Pablo Tobón Uribe Hospital in Medellín between 2010 and 2015. Frequencies of location, degree of differentiation and immune-histochemistry profile are described. Results. One hundred eleven histories were reviewed, of which 51.5% corresponded to male patients, with a median age at diagnosis of 48 years. The most frequent comorbidities were arterial hypertension (38.6%), hypothyroidism (15.8%) and diabetes mellitus (11.9%). Medical history of neoplasia was present in 13.9% of the cases. 59.4% of the samples corresponded to primary tumors, 34.8% were located in the pancreas. The liver was the organ most compromised by metastasis (73.3%). Of the neuroendocrine tumors, 27% corresponded to grade 1 tumors of the gastrointestinal tract or pancreas, 36% to grade 2 and 27.9% to grade 3; 3.6% corresponded to low or intermediate grade lung tumors and 5.4% to high-grade lung tumors. The tumor markers with the highest positivity were synaptophysin (97.2%), cytokeratins AE1/AE3 (95%), CD56 (91.3%) and chromogranin (87.8%). Discusion. Neuroendocrine tumors have diverse clinical and histopathologic features. Knowing the characteristics of affected patients allows an approximation of local epidemiology applicable to future research.