Neuroendocrine Tumors

Frank Price, PhD, thought he had appendicitis when he took himself to a hospital in Utica, NY, with pain in his abdomen nearly four years ago.

Simron Singh, MD, MPH, FRCPC, Medical Oncologist and Affiliate Scientist in the Odette Cancer Research Program of Sunnybrook Research Institute in Toronto, Ontario, will headline the 7th Annual Neuroendocrine

The mission of cancer research – to find better and more effective ways to treat or prevent cancer – begins with a better understanding of the disease. Knowing how a cancer begins and how it grows is an important first step toward fighting it and has led to remarkable advances in oncology.

On January 29, the Food and Drug Administration approved a lutetium Lu 177 dotatate (Lutathera^®), a targeted radiation drug, for the treatment of gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors.

Neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) are called the zebra of cancers because they are rare, and behave very differently from other cancer types. While NETs are typically small and slow growing, they can develop anywhere in the body, most commonly the stomach, intestines, pancreas, lungs and liver. Since they don’t show up on typical PET scans, finding them at early stages or detecting metastasis is difficult.

When Megan Johnson was 21 months old, a large tumor collapsed her lung and pushed her heart to the other side of her chest. It was a primitive neuroectodermal tumor (PNET), a rare and very aggressive type of cancer. Doctors advised her parents that her chances of survival were less than 10 percent.

A new agent, gallium-68 dotatate (Netspot^®), recently FDA-approved and available at Roswell Park, can be used as a PET tracer instead of the glucose to identify carcinoid tumors—even very small lesions—significantly better than any currently available imaging.

There are certain times of year when my cancer story makes me feel incredibly isolated. There’s the time surrounding April 14, the day I was diagnosed, July 29, the day I was deemed “in remission” and, the one I’ve experienced most recently, the month of October.