Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PanNETs) vascularization: From “micro” to “macro”

#3581

Introduction: Density of microvessels in pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PanNETs) changes according to their biological behaviour. Differently from other non-neuroendocrine cancers, a low microvessel density (L-MVD) is associated with higher disease aggressiveness and poorer prognosis.

Aim(s): 1) To investigate the relationship between MVD, pathological features of aggressiveness and disease recurrence in patients who underwent surgery for PanNETs; 2) to assess the association between MVD and imaging patterns of contrast enhancement.

Materials and methods: Patients who underwent surgery for nonfunctioning PanNETs (n=66) with available preoperative contrast-enhanced (CE) computed tomography (CT) (n=39) and/or CE endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) (n=37) performed at San Raffaele Hospital (2015-2020) were included. Tumor vascularization was assessed by CD34 staining, CE-CT and CE-EUS. Median MVD (165 microvessels/mm2) was chosen as cut-off to define low and high MVD.

Conference:

Presenting Author:

Authors: Battistella A, Andreasi V, Palumbo D, Tacelli M, de Cobelli F,

Keywords: pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor, microvessel density, imaging, computed tomography, endoscopic ultrasound, vascularization, enhancement, washout,