Yadav S, et al. - Patients with pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PNETs) and pancreatic adenocarcinomas were compared regarding incidence, demographics, tumor characteristics, and survival. A higher proportion of patients with PNETs presented with early-stage tumor, well differentiated tumors, and were younger at diagnosis. These features were favorable. Even after adjusting for age, sex, race, site, grade, and stage, PNETs vs pancreatic adenocarcinomas had a significantly better survival rate.

Methods

• Researchers used the population-based cancer registries of the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results program to identify all cases of pancreatic adenocarcinomas and PNETs between 2004 and 2012.
• They used a combination of topographical and histology codes based on ICD-O-3 in order to identify the cases.
• Between these 2 histologic subtypes of pancreatic cancer, incidence, demographics, tumor characteristics, and survival was then compared.

Results

• A total of 57,688 patients were identified with pancreatic cancer: 53,753 (93%) with pancreatic adenocarcinoma and 3,935 (7%) with PNET.
• As per data, between 2004 and 2012, the overall age-adjusted incidence of PNETs vs pancreatic adenocarcinomas was was 0.52 per 100,000 per year vs 7.34 per 100,000 per year, respectively.
• Researchers noted that PNETs had a significantly younger median age at diagnosis (61 vs 69 years).
• PNETs were diagnosed at stage I significantly more often (20.5% vs 6.0%) and, relative to adenocarcinomas, PNETs were well differentiated (32.8% vs 4.5%).
• For PNETs and pancreatic adenocarcinomas, 5-year cause-specific survival of 51.3% and 5.0%, respectively, was reported.
• A hazard ratio for death of 4.02 (95% confidence interval, 3.79-4.28) was reported for pancreatic adenocarcinomas vs PNETs in multivariate analysis.