Pulmonary Neuroendocrine Tumors

Pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors represent a morphologic spectrum of tumors from the well-differentiated typical carcinoid tumor, to the intermediate-grade atypical carcinoid tumor, to the high-grade neuroendocrine carcinomas composed of small-cell carcinoma and large-cell neuroendocrine carcinoma. The addition of immunohistochemistry in diagnostics is helpful and often essential, especially in the classification of large-cell neuroendocrine carcinoma. The importance of the intermediate-grade atypical carcinoid group is underscored by the impact of this diagnosis on therapy. The distinction of pulmonary small-cell carcinoma from large-cell neuroendocrine carcinoma, despite both being in the high-grade group, is of relevance to the therapeutic approach to these tumor types.