Dr. Steven Nurkin and Dr. Benjamin Calvo pose together in clinic

Neuroendocrine Tumor Treatments

Treatment for neuroendocrine tumors will depend on your tumor’s type, stage, grade and whether it has spread to lymph nodes or distant areas of your body. In addition, the location is important, as NETs in the lungs are often treated differently than NETs in the pancreas. Your treatment will likely include more than one type of therapy and the expertise from more than one type of cancer specialist.

Roswell Park’s multidisciplinary NET team involves several NET oncologists, including thoracic and gastrointestinal surgeons, medical and radiation oncologists plus interventional radiologists, therapeutic endoscopists and experts in nuclear medicine, gastroenterology and endocrinology. Studies have shown that outcomes for patients with NETs are better when cancer care is coordinated and optimally sequenced.

Roswell Park’s NET experts will determine which treatment options — and in which order — are best for you and your cancer. Your treatment may involve one or more of the following:

  • Surgery to remove the tumor and other affected tissue from the body.
  • Medical Therapy, which uses drugs to fight the cancer. Medical therapy for neuroendocrine tumors may include:
    • Chemotherapy
    • Targeted Therapy
    • Immunotherapy
    • Somatostatin analogs
    • Radiopharmaceutical agents
  • Radiation Therapy, which uses high-energy x-rays to kill cancer cells.
  • Liver-Directed Therapy to provide nonsurgical options for tumors in the liver.
  • Clinical Trials to access the very latest drugs and treatments.

When cancer spreads to your liver

When cancer spreads from its original location to the liver, these new tumors, called liver metastases, need special treatment. Roswell Park offers innovative and advanced therapies unavailable elsewhere in the region that can improve survival and potentially cure the disease.

If you’ve been told your liver metastases cannot be removed surgically or are inoperable or unresectable, please contact us and ask for a second opinion from the liver metastases team.

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