Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 28, 2026
Endobronchial Ultrasound-guided Intratumoral Injection of Cisplatin for the Treatment of Isolated Mediastinal Recurrence of Lung Cancer
Published on: February 12, 2017
Long-term survival outcome after surgical resection of pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors
Eisuke Goto1,2, Keiju Aokage3, Kotaro Nomura1,2
1Department of Thoracic Surgery, National Cancer Center Hospital East, Kashiwa, Chiba, Japan.
Purpose:
Surgery is the standard treatment for early-stage pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors (NETs); however, long-term prognostic data are limited. This study aimed to establish the long-term outcomes of surgically resected pulmonary NETs.
Methods:
This study included 263 patients who underwent pulmonary resection between January, 1997 and December, 2019: 89 with small cell lung carcinoma (SCLC), 120 with large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma (LCNEC), 14 with atypical carcinoid (AC), and 40 with typical carcinoid (TC). We analyzed clinicopathological characteristics and long-term prognosis.
Results:
The 5-year relapse-free survival (RFS) rates were 38.7%, 54.2%, 62.3%, and 85.0%, and the 10-year RFS rates were 24.5%, 39.8%, 20.8%, and 76.4% for SCLC, LCNEC, AC, and TC, respectively. All deaths from TC occurred more than 5 years after surgery, whereas three of the four deaths from AC occurred after this period. Most patients with high-grade NETs had relapses within 3 years after surgery, whereas patients with AC had relapses not only in the early phase but also in the late phase.
Conclusions:
The long-term prognosis of AC is comparable to that of high-grade NETs, suggesting that its biological characteristics might be more closely related to high-grade NETs than to TC.
