Primary and metastatic hepatic neuroendocrine carcinoma: a clinicopathological study

Objective To study the clinicopathological features of primary and metastatic hepatic neuroendocrine carcinoma.Methods The records of 35 patients with primary hepatic neuroendocrine carcinoma and 35 patients with metastatic hepatic neuroendocrine carcinoma were retrospectively reviewed.These patients served as the primary group(priNET,n=35)and the metastasis group (metNET,n=35),respectively.Results There were significant differences between the two groups of patients in gender,site,size and number of tumor(P＜0.05).Although there was no significant difference between the two groups in the distribution of the tumors in the two lobes of liver (P＞0.05),priNET had more tumors localized to one lobe of liver while metNET had more tumors involving both lobes of liver(P＜0.05).Conclusions Gender,size,site and number of tumor may play an important role in the differentiation of primary or metastatic hepatic neuroendocrine tumor. Key words: Liver tumor; Neuroendocrine tumor; Clinical pathology