Use of octreotide in the treatment of digestive neuroendocrine tumours. Seven year experience in 20 cases including 9 cases of metastatic midgut carcinoid and 5 cases of metastatic gastrinoma.

The authors report their experience with octreotide in 20 patients (median age 57 years, 10 M, 10 F) from 1984 to 1991; 16 had metastatic APUDoma: 1 PPoma with VIPoma, 1 glucagonoma, 5 gastrinoma including 1 associated to PP-oma, 9 mid-gut carcinoid; 3 patients had multiple-endocrine neoplasia type I (MEN-I) with Zollinger-Ellison syndrome (ZES) and 1 patient a non-metastatic VIPoma. Octreotide (200-750 micrograms/day) was administered bid or tid with regular laboratory controls and morphological assessment. There was a striking improvement of symptoms, particularly in the carcinoid group (reduction of flushing in all patients and of diarrhoea in 3/5), in the patient with gastrinoma + acromegaly (regression of congestive heart failure) and in the patient with non-metastatic VIPoma. The hormonal markers were markedly reduced, particularly gastrin, PP (except in the patient with PPoma + VIPoma), VIP, GH and Somatomedin-C and urinary 5HIAA in 4/9 patients with carcinoid. There was only one partial regression of metastases (gastrinoma) and 4 apparent stabilizations of tumour growth, in the 16 metastatic cases. Among them, 4 patients died: 1 glucagonoma, 1 PPoma + VIPoma, 2 mid-gut carcinoids after a treatment of 5, 16, 30, 36 months, respectively. The patient with acromegaly + ZES died after 6 years of treatment at age 81. A patient with prolactinoma, resected insulinoma, hyperparathyroidism and ZES was not improved by a short course of octreotide (hypoglycemia); he died later of recurrent insulinoma. In conclusion, octreotide is a useful drug to control most of the symptoms related to gut endocrine tumours; it may inhibit tumour growth.