Prognostic factors in 151 patients with surgically resected non-functioning pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours.

Background: Recently, non-functioning pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (NF-PNETs) are increasing. It is important to know about the prognostic factors and long-term survival rates in patients with NF-PNET for the management of these diseases.

Methods: We retrospectively analysed the records of 151 patients with NF-PNET who had pancreatic resection between January 1995 and December 2010.

Results: The 10-year overall survival, disease-specific survival and disease-free survival rate of the patients who underwent surgery for NF-PNET were 72.6%, 85.1% and 57.2% respectively. The three staging systems (2004 World Health Organization classification, 2006 European Neuroendocrine Tumor Society stages and 2010 grading system) showed comparable prognostic relevance in disease-specific survival of patients with resected NF-PNETs. Lymph nodes metastasis, high Ki-67 index and mitotic rate were the independent poor prognostic factors for disease-specific survival in the patients with surgically resected NF-PNET on multivariate analysis.

Conclusions: We suggested that the three staging systems accurately reflect the prognosis in disease-specific survival of patients with resected NF-PNETs. Presence of lymph nodes metastases and high Ki-67 index and mitotic rate were the independent poor prognostic factors after resection of NF-PNET.