Utility of Somatostatin Receptors in Gastrointestinal Tract and Pancreas Neuroendocrine Tumors

Abstract

Aim: Neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) are heterogenous group of tumors. Most of gastroenteropancreatic NETs (GEPNETs) are welldifferentiated low-grade tumors but a subset of them displays aggressive behavior. Somatostatin receptors (SSTR) play an im-portant role in the pathogenesis of GEPNETs, and they display targets for therapy. We aimed to evaluate SSTR2, SSTR3, SSTR5 by immunohistochemistry in GEPNETs and correlate with clinicopathological findings.Materials and Methods: Totally 61 cases were enrolled into this study and evaluated for SSTR2, 3, and 5 by im-munohistochemically.Results: Mostly the patients had low-grade neoplasms and 23% of them had metastatic disease. Total-ly, 73%, 47%, and 26% positivity were found by SSTR2, SSTR3, and SSTR5, respectively. The histopathological grade was increased relative to decreasing expression levels of SSTRs. Among metastatic neoplasms, SSTR2 positivity was found to be greater than a non-metastatic disease.Conclusion:In conclusion, SSTRs are useful to predict the clinical outcomes as well as target of therapy.

Keywords

• neuroendocrine
• somatostatin
• gastrointestinal
• pancreas