Palliative operations for patients with unresectable endocrine neoplasia

No good randomized studies exist for many types of endocrine tumors to prove that surgery increases the survival of patients with these tumors. However, many case reports and our own experience suggest that it does. Therefore, surgery may be performed to potentially increase the survival of patients with metastatic and localized malignant endocrine tumors. Subsequently, these tumors may still recur locally or distantly. Therefore, surgery is usually a palliative procedure but is occasionally curative. Because endocrine tumors secrete hormonal substances resulting in particular syndromes, debulking surgery may be necessary to control hormonal syndromes. The location of a tumor may cause mass symptoms that can also be relieved by surgery. Thus, many patients with malignant endocrine neoplasia benefit from aggressive surgery. The surgeon must determine the resectability of the tumor as well as the operative morbidity and benefit to the patient before proceeding.