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Review
. 2019 Aug 4;11(8):1113.
doi: 10.3390/cancers11081113.

Specific and Non-Specific Biomarkers in Neuroendocrine Gastroenteropancreatic Tumors

Andrea Sansone  1 , Rosa Lauretta  2 , Sebastiano Vottari  3 , Alfonsina Chiefari  3 , Agnese Barnabei  3 , Francesco Romanelli  1 , Marialuisa Appetecchia  4
Affiliations
Review

Specific and Non-Specific Biomarkers in Neuroendocrine Gastroenteropancreatic Tumors

Andrea Sansone et al. Cancers (Basel). .

Abstract

The diagnosis of neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) is a challenging task: Symptoms are rarely specific, and clinical manifestations are often evident only when metastases are already present. However, several bioactive substances secreted by NETs can be included for diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive purposes. Expression of these substances differs between different NETs according to the tumor hormone production. Gastroenteropancreatic (GEP) NETs originate from the diffuse neuroendocrine system of the gastrointestinal tract and pancreatic islets cells: These tumors may produce many non-specific and specific substances, such as chromogranin A, insulin, gastrin, glucagon, and serotonin, which shape the clinical manifestations of the NETs. To provide an up-to-date reference concerning the different biomarkers, as well as their main limitations, we reviewed and summarized existing literature.

Keywords: biomarkers; diagnosis; gastroenteropancreatic tumors; neuroendocrine tumors; prognostic markers.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interests for the current study.

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