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Vol.46 No.4 contents | Japanese/English |
 | Full Text of PDF (472K) Article in Japanese |
- Review Article -
Pulmonary Large Cell Neuroendocrine Carcinoma
Akira Iyoda1, Kenzo Hiroshima2, Yukio Nakatani2, Takehiko Fujisawa1Departments of 1Thoracic Surgery, 2Diagnostic Pathology, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, Japan
In 1999, the World Health Organization (WHO) categorized large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma as a variant of large cell carcinoma. It is important not only to classify histological types of large cell carcinomas of the lung in detail but also to understand that histological subtypes of lung carcinomas are closely related to prognoses. Among large cell carcinomas, large cell neuroendocrine carcinomas are not rare and are more frequently diagnosed by clinicians as recognition of this entity widens. Since Travis et al. first reported LCNEC in 1991, many authors have reported that LCNECs are aggressive tumors and patients with LCNEC have very poor prognoses. Although LCNEC is categorized as a variant of large cell carcinomas, the biological behavior of LCNEC tumors is very similar to those of small cell lung carcinomas, thus LCNEC tumors should be classified as high-grade neuroendocrine tumors. Because of the poor prognosis, surgery alone is not sufficient to cure LCNEC tumors, and patients with LCNEC must receive multimodality therapies including adjuvant chemotherapy even if the pathological stage is IA.
key words: Lung carcinoma, Large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma
JJLC 46 (4): 315-320, 2006
