Small intestinal adenocarcinoma, duodenal carcinoid tumour, and von Recklinghausen's neurofibromatosis.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to D F Griffiths.
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To clarify neuroendocrine syndromes we have reviewed the association of neurofibromatosis with carcinoid tumours and of neurofibromatosis, phaeochromocytoma or von Hippel-Lindau complex with either carcinoid or islet cell tumours. In nine cases of neurofibromatosis with a carcinoid tumour studied all carcinoid tumours were in the duodenum, were distinctive histologically and had widespread somatostatin immunoreactivity. The duodenum was the primary site in 18 of 20 further published cases of carcinoid tumour and neurofibromatosis. Phaeochromocytoma was also present in six of these 27 cases with neurofibromatosis and duodenal carcinoid tumour. Six patients have been reported with Von Hippel-Lindau complex, phaeochromocytoma and islet cell tumour. A further 11 patients showed phaeochromocytoma and islet cell tumour. No cases of Von Hippel-Lindau complex had a carcinoid tumour, and no cases of neurofibromatosis had an islet cell tumour. We conclude that the association of neurofibromatosis, duodenal carcinoid tumour and phaeochromocytoma forms a distinctive neuroendocrine syndrome, sharply separated from the association of Von Hippel-Lindau complex with islet cell tumour and phaeochromocytoma. This separation is important in pathogenesis, diagnosis and clinical management.
The clinical and pathological features of four cases of duodenal carcinoid tumour are presented. All four tumours showed a glandular pattern, and in three cases this was associated with psammoma bodies. In three tumours somatostatin was identified by immunocytochemistry in most tumour cells. In two cases the duodenal tumours were associated with von Recklinghausen's disease and phaeochromocytoma. The importance of these unusual features is discussed, and it is suggested that these glandular carcinoids are a specific subgroup of endocrine cell tumours which appear to have potentially important clinical and pathological associations.
Details were studied of three patients with duodenal carcinoid tumour in association with neurofibromatosis and phaeochromocytoma, and of four patients with duodenal carcinoid and either von Recklinghausen's disease or phaeochromocytoma. The rarity of these endocrine tumours, together with the unusual morphological features and somatostatin content of the two duodenal carcinoids examined, suggest that this combination of tumours is not a chance association. It is suggested that this linkage of neurofibromatosis, phaeochromocytoma, and duodenal carcinoid is a specific multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome.
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