Childhood pancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms: A national experience

Pancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms (pNENs) diagnosed in childhood are very rare, with few data available. The aim was to describe the clinical presentation and behavior of children with pNENs at a national level.

National multicenter retrospective study of all patients, aged from 0 to 17 years at diagnosis, treated from 2011 to 2020 for a pNEN and registered in the French National Registry of Childhood Cancers or FRACTURE database.

Fifteen patients, 13 well-differentiated pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (pNETs) and two neuroendocrine carcinomas (pNECs), were selected. Median age at diagnosis was 14 years (range, 7-17). Eight patients, all with localized disease, had a cancer predisposition syndrome (CPS), including five cases diagnosed during systematic screening. Five (31%) had metastatic disease at diagnosis: three grade 2 pNETs and two pNECs. First line therapy included exclusive pancreatectomy (seven cases, all M0), active surveillance (three cases, all M0), medical therapies (somatostatin analogues, chemotherapy; four cases, all M1), and surgery with medical therapy (one M1 case). Three-year progression-free survival was 57% (confidence interval [CI] 95%: 27-78) and was significantly better for patients with low-grade well differentiated (73 vs. 0%; p < 10^-4) and localized (76 vs. 20%; p = .02) tumors. The two patients with pNECs died. Three-year overall survival was 92% (CI95%: 59-99) and was significantly better in patients with low-grade tumor (100 vs. 50%; p = 10^-4).

Childhood pNENs occur more frequently in adolescents with CPS. Localized low-grade pNETs in children have a very good prognosis, whereas the treatment of high-grade and metastatic pNETs/pNECs should be better defined.