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Pharmacotherapeutic Management of Well-Differentiated Neuroendocrine Tumors in Older Patients: Current Status and Potential Therapies

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Abstract

Neuroendocrine tumors are a rare and heterogenous group of neoplasms that arise from hormone-producing cells throughout the body, with the greatest increase in incidence occurring among older adults aged ≥ 65 years. Despite this, there is currently a lack of data regarding the safety and efficacy of systemic treatment for older adults with neuroendocrine tumors. In this review, we provide a synopsis of the current standard-of-care pharmacotherapeutic treatments for neuroendocrine tumors, with an emphasis on available data in older adults. The benefits of various systemic options such as somatostatin analogs, tryptophan hydroxylase inhibition, molecular targeted agents, peptide receptor radionuclide therapy, and chemotherapy were similar between older adults compared to younger patients. However, real-world data regarding tolerance in the older adult population with neuroendocrine tumors are needed. Future development of novel systemic therapies in the neuroendocrine tumor treatment landscape and their inclusion of and potential impact on older adults living with neuroendocrine tumors is warranted.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Oncology and Therapeutics Research, City of Hope National Medical Center, 1500 E Duarte Road, Duarte, CA, 91010, USA

    Christiana Crook, Ya-Han Zhang & Daneng Li

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  1. Christiana Crook
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  2. Ya-Han Zhang
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  3. Daneng Li
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Correspondence to Daneng Li.

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No external funding was used in the preparation of this article.

Conflicts of Interest/Competing Interests

Daneng Li reports research funding to his institution from AstraZeneca and Brooklyn ImmunoTherapeutics. He serves as a consultant and has received honoraria from Adagene, Advanced Accelerator Applications, Bayer, Coherus, Eisai, Exelixis, Genentech, Ipsen Biopharmaceuticals, Lexicon, Merck, MiNA Therapeutics, QED, Servier, Sun Pharma, Taiho, and TerSera Therapeutics, all outside the submitted work. Christiana Crook and Ya-Han Zhang declare that they have no conflicts of interest that might be relevant to the contents of this article.

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Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

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Authors’ Contributions

Christiana Crook and Daneng Li conceived the idea for this article. Christiana Crook performed the literature search and data analysis. All authors drafted and/or critically revised the work.

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Crook, C., Zhang, YH. & Li, D. Pharmacotherapeutic Management of Well-Differentiated Neuroendocrine Tumors in Older Patients: Current Status and Potential Therapies. Drugs Aging 39, 257–269 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40266-022-00934-1

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