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Vol.47 No.7 contents | Japanese/English |
 | Full Text of PDF (444K) Article in Japanese |
- The 21st Lung Cancer Workshop -
Lung Neuroendocrine Tumors with Particular Reference to Large Cell Neuroendocrine Carcinoma, a Future Perspective
Yuichi Ishikawa11Department of Pathology, The Cancer Institute, Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research, Japan
Classification of lung neuroendocrine (NE) tumors has changed greatly since the introduction of large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma (LCNEC) and the abolition of small cell carcinoma (SCLC) intermediate cell type. Carcinoid is now divided into typical and atypical types (TC and AC) and it has been proved that there is a prognostic difference between the two. However, presentation of the 4 types of NE tumors like TC-AC-LCNEC-SCLC is misleading. Carcinoid differs from carcinoma in terms of epidemiology, pathology, genomics and therapeutics. It is proposed that lung NE tumors should be divided into two: carcinoid and high-grade NE carcinoma and subsequently each should be subclassified. Expression profiling couldn't distinguish LCNEC from SCLC, rather it detected 2 prognostically different groups. It seems that different signal pathways are activated in the 2 groups. Interestingly, evidence shows that SCLC has a nature of lung precursor cells, possibly explaining its good responsiveness to chemotherapy. In future, there will be growing interests on the chemo-responsiveness of LCNEC.
key words: Lung cancer, Neuroendocrine carcinoma, Large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma, Small cell carcinoma, Carcinoid (Typical carcinoid, Atypical carcinoid)
JJLC 47 (7): 935-939, 2007
