Causes of Death After Neuroendocrine Tumors Diagnosis: A US Population-Based Analysis

In this study, we aimed to determine the cause of death (COD) after the diagnosis of neuroendocrine tumors (NET).

We used the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Program to review patients diagnosed with NET during 2000 to 2016. Patients were followed until death, and different CODs were determined.

Of 94,399 patients with NETs, 40.9% died during the study period. During the first year of diagnosis, most deaths were from NETs (73%), followed by other cancers (11.2%) and cardiac diseases (4.6%). After more than 10 years, NET deaths decreased to 24.3%, whereas other cancers and cardiac disease became more common. Neuroendocrine tumors were responsible for 42.8%, 63.4%, and 81.2% of deaths in grade I, grade II, and grade III, respectively. For grade I localized NET, other cancers (22.2%) were the most common COD followed by NET (19.7%), whereas in grade 2 localized NET, NET was COD in 31.1% of cases followed by other cancers (22.4%). In metastatic disease, NET was the most common COD regardless of grade.

For low-grade localized NET, deaths were mostly secondary to non-NET causes. In contrast, NET is responsible for most of deaths in metastatic NET regardless of grade.