The Effect of Patient and Doctors Delay in Patients with Neuroendocrine Tumors

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Introduction: The diagnosis of neuroendocrine tumors (NET) is often delayed due to the vague symptoms and rareness of the disease.

Aim(s): To investigate the association of delay in diagnosis and stage, grade, symptoms, primary site of the tumor and survival in patients with low-grade NET.

Materials and methods: We collected data of 216 patients who were referred to the NKI-AVL between 2003 and 2009. The start date and nature of the first symptoms, the first referral to a specialist and the date of NET diagnosis were reported in order to calculate two types of delay: patient (first symptoms to first referral to the specialist) and total delay (first symptoms to diagnosis). Linear regression analyses and Kaplan-Meier curves were performed to examine the association between patients characteristics, delays and survival.

Conference: 10th Annual ENETSConcerence (2013)

Presenting Author:

Authors: Keizer A, Korse C, Saveur L, Tesselaar M,

Keywords: delay in diagnosis, neuroendocrine tumor,