Molecular targeted drugs, such as everolimus and sunitinib, have shown efficacy against advanced pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. Octreotide, a somatostatin analogue, improves the hormone-related symptoms in patients with neuroendocrine tumors. Furthermore, it has been reported that octreotide has antitumor activity in patients with metastatic midgut neuroendocrine tumors. However, whether octreotide has anti-proliferative effects in patients with advanced pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors is not fully understood. We report a 71-year-old man with multiple liver metastases of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. He was treated with everolimus 10 mg daily and sunitinib 25 mg daily on days 1-14 every 3 weeks at the physician's discretion. However, these molecular targeted drugs were discontinued due to disease progression or severe adverse effects. Octreotide long-acting repeatable was administered continuously from the initiation of everolimus treatment. The tumor marker level markedly decreased and the metastatic liver lesions showed shrinkage with octreotide treatment. Immunohistochemistry of tumor specimens obtained before treatment showed that somatostatin receptor 2, a high-affinity receptor for octreotide, was highly expressed. The clinical course of this patient suggested that octreotide long-acting repeatable may be a treatment option for advanced pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors after failure of everolimus and sunitinib. Further clinical trials are warranted to determine whether the expression of somatostatin receptor 2 in tumor tissues is predictive of octreotide efficacy.
Keywords: Octreotide; Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor; Somatostatin receptor.