Acta clinica Croatica, Vol. 41 No. 4, 2002.
Editorial
From Carcinoids to a Biologically and Prognostically Relevant Classification of the Neuroendocrine Tumors of the Gastrointestinal Tract and the Pancreas
Günter Klöppel
Aurel Perren
Philipp U. Heitz
Abstract
Although well established in the medical terminology, the term carcinoid is no longer adequate to cover the entire morphological and biological spectrum of neoplasms of the disseminated neuroendocrine cell system. Instead of "carcinoid" the WHO classification published in 2000 therefore uses the general terms "neuroendocrine tumor" and "neuroendocrine carcinoma". In this review we describe a classification of gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors based on the WHO criteria. We also classify and comment on the most important tumor entities. On the basis of localization and of various morphological and biological criteria we distinguish between benign neuroendocrine tumors, tumors with uncertain malignant potential, and tumors showing low grade and high grade malignancy.
Keywords
Carcinoids; Neuroendocrine tumors, classification, prognosis, diagnosis
Hrčak ID:
14746
URI
Publication date:
2.12.2002.
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