Preoperative Imaging in Patients With Small Bowel Neuroendocrine Tumors

Plain-language summary

Digestive NETs are the second most common malignant digestive tumor after adenocarcinoma. The most common gastrointestinal NETs arise from the small intestine. These tumors have a high lymph node and distant metastatic potential (hepatic, pulmonary, etc.). Their management is essentially surgical and the extent of the resection essentially depends on preoperative data from conventional and isotopic imaging. The goal of surgical resection is to remove the portion of the small intestine carrying the tumour(s) with healthy margins (so-called R0 resection) and affected lymph nodes in the mesentery (lymph node dissection). The extent of lymph node dissection, sometimes significant, exposes you to the risk of short hail with its own complications (malnutrition, diarrhoea, etc.). Consequently, an analysis of the benefits and risks between the interest of an extensive and oncological resection (R0) and the risks of short bowel must be carried out for each patient. The reference examination to define lymph node involvement is determined by the histological examination of the resected surgical specimen (reference examination). The preoperative evaluation of lymph node extension is done by preoperative abdominal CT scan. However, the preoperative CT scan is not always consistent (sensitivity and specificity) with the pathology data (reference examination). For about 5 years, isotopic imaging (DOPA-PET and DOTATOC) has become feasible and could improve the quality of preoperative evaluation of lymph node extension. Consequently, the aim of this study is to determine the contribution of isotopic imaging (DOPA-PET and DOTATOC) in the preoperative evaluation of lymph node extension.

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