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Neuroendocrine tumour service

Accredited as a European Neuroendocrine Tumour Society (ENETS) Centre of Excellence, we offer a specialist service coordinated through a specialist multi-disciplinary team (MDT). This means that health professionals from a range of different areas will work together to plan, coordinate and deliver your care. You can find out more about our team here.

Our service includes radiology (scans), nuclear medicine (the branch of medicine that involves the administration of radioactive substances to diagnose and treat diseases), surgery, gastroenterology, endocrinology, oncology, dietetics and specialist nursing.

What are neuroendocrine tumours (NETs or NENs)

Neuroendocrine tumours (NETs) or neuroendocrine neoplasm (NEN) is cancer that starts in the neuroendocrine cells. They can develop almost anywhere in the body and are most common in chest (lung), gastrointestinal (colon, duodenal, ileum, appendix), and hepatopancreatobiliary (pancreas, liver, gallbladder).

They are identified as a cancer as they have the ability to spread and metastasise to other parts of the body.

Each year in the UK, around 6000 people are diagnosed with a neuroendocrine tumour.

Common symptoms of neuroendocrine tumours include:

  • flushed skin
  • diarrhoea
  • tummy pain or swelling
  • intestinal blockage
  • wheezing and breathlessness.

Some NETs produce abnormally large amounts of hormones. These NETs have a related syndrome (carcinoid syndrome) which can cause some of the above symptoms and may also lead to heart valve damage and skin changes.

The group of neuroendocrine tumours that arise in the pancreas can be classified into two different groups; functioning and non-functioning. The functioning group will produce a number of clinical syndromes (signs and symptoms that occur together) that are related to where they originate. For example, an insulinoma will over-secrete insulin and gastrinomas are gastrin-secreting tumours.

The non-functioning group, which accounts for 30 to 40% of pancreatic tumours, may secrete certain hormones and peptides like other NETs, but the release of these chemicals does not cause an identifiable ‘syndrome’ or collection of symptoms. This can make diagnosis difficult and explains why so many causes are picked up incidentally.