Langenbeck's archives of surgery
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Langenbecks Arch Surg · Aug 2015
Palliative resection of the primary tumor in 442 metastasized neuroendocrine tumors of the pancreas: a population-based, propensity score-matched survival analysis.
There is an ongoing debate on whether palliative removal of the primary tumor may result in a survival benefit for patients with incurable stage IV pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (P-NET). The objective of this study was to assess whether palliative resection of the primary tumor in patients with incurable stage IV P-NET has an impact on survival. ⋯ This population-based analysis of stage IV P-NET patients provides compelling evidence that palliative resection of the primary tumor is associated with significant survival benefit. Thus, the recent recommendations judging resection of the primary as inadvisable and the accompanying trend towards fewer palliative resections of the primary tumor have to be contested.