Palliative treatment of neuroendocrine tumors

Effective palliation of patients with incurable neuroendocrine tumors requires both control of hormonal overproduction symptoms as well as control of tumor growth. Several important advances have been made in recent years toward these two goals. Octreotide and omeprazole have both been extremely effective in ameliorating hormonal symptoms of carcinoids, islet cell tumors and medullary thyroid carcinoma. Newer cytotoxic chemotherapy regimens and interferon have increased response rates over traditional therapy. More aggressive surgical extirpation of metastatic disease has also been beneficial.