Clinical presentation, recurrence, and survival in patients with neuroendocrine tumors: Results from a prospective institutional database

Abstract

The rarity of neuroendocrine tumors (NET) has contributed to a paucity of large epidemiologic studies of patients with this condition.We characterized presenting symptoms and clinical outcomes in a prospective database of over 900 patients with NET.We used data from patient questionnaires and the medical record to characterize presenting symptoms, disease-free survival (DFS), and overall survival (OS). The majority of patients in this database had gastroenteropancreatic NET. The median duration of patient-reported symptoms before diagnosis was 3.4 months; 19.5% reported durations from 1 to 5 years, 2.5% from 5 to 10 years, and 2%