Small Pancreatic Tumors? Just Watch and Wait (MedPage Today, 23 May 2013)

It may be safe to wait for small, asymptomatic pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours (pNETs) to increase in size before exposing the patient to the risk of surgical resection, according to a retrospective analysis of 47 patients with sporadic non-functioning pNETs of under 2cm, presented to Digestive Disease Week.

After a mean follow-up of three years only 8 patients’ (17%) tumours had increased by more than 20% in diameter, of whom all had grade 1 tumours without locoregional involvement. 7 of these patients underwent resection with zero mortality.

The authors suggest that the majority (83%) of the small tumours in the study had no significant increase in size, and for those that did it was safe to wait until the size increase before operating. These findings support a general consensus against routine surgery for small pNETs.

Source: MedPage Today

Conference abstract (898)