Carcinoid of the pancreas

Pancreatic carcinoids are very rare and usually have a poor prognosis. We describe a case of a pancreatic carcinoid with liver micrometastases in a female of 54 years of age in whom the tumor was without pronounced symptoms apart from rare episodes of flushing. The patient had been treated since November 1995 with the somatostatin analogue octreotide 200 micrograms twice daily for the first 2 years, with the long-acting analogue lanreotide 30 mg every 10 days for the following year, and then with octreotide LAR 20 mg every 28 days until the present. The flushing episodes disappeared completely, and the patient was well. Moreover, the dimensions of the tumor and the liver micrometastases remained stable during the observation period. As far as we known, this is the first case of a pancreatic carcinoid treated successfully with somatostatin analogues and having a satisfactory prognosis.