Somatostatin receptor scintigraphy in preoperative diagnosis of the site of endocrine gastrointestinal tumors

To determine the value of somatostatin-receptor scintigraphy in the localization of various endocrine gastrointestinal tumors, we compared the results obtained with this new technique with the results obtained with computed tomography and sonography. We could not find an overall advantage of somatostatin-receptor scintigraphy as compared to computed tomography or sonography in the localization of intestinal carcinoids (n = 13), gastrinomas (n = 12), functionally non-active endocrine pancreatic tumors (n = 8) and various other endocrine pancreatic tumors (n = 4). In 2 patients with endocrine pancreatic tumors however, the tumors were localized preoperatively only by somatostatin-receptor scintigraphy. Somatostatin-receptor scintigraphy may occasionally be helpful in the localization of gastrointestinal endocrine tumors if these tumors are not localized by conventional imaging studies. Somatostatin-receptor scintigraphy does not solve the problem to localize small endocrine tumors.