Treatment of Type II Gastric Carcinoid Tumors with Somatostatin Analogues

Abstract

GASTRIC carcinoid tumors are rare tumors that originate from gastric enterochromaf- fin-like cells in the oxyntic mucosa. 1 There are three types of gastric carcinoid tumors: type I is associated with chronic atrophic gastritis, type II de- velops in patients with combined multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 and the Zollinger–Ellison syndrome, and type III is sporadic. 1 Although the pathogenesis of these tumors is not completely understood, hyper- gastrinemia has an important role in the development of types I and II. 2 The multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 gene locus may be involved in type II gastric carcinoid tumors. 3,4 All three types are usually removed surgically or endoscopically, depending on the size of the tumors. 5,6 Octreotide can control the hypergastrinemia and re- lated growth of enterochromaffin-like cells in pa- tients with hypergastrinemic atrophic gastritis. 7 More- over, regression of a type III gastric carcinoid tumor after octreotide treatment has been reported. 8 Prompt- ed by these findings, we treated three patients who had type II gastric carcinoid tumors with somato- statin analogues. The tumors regressed in all three patients.