Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To analyze the angiography appearance of liver metastases from gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NETs), and evaluate the clinical efficacy and prognostic factors of interventional treatment for hepatic metastases. METHODS: Fifty GEP-NETs patients with hepatic metastases were treated from January 2012 to December 2016, and received transarterial embolization (TAE) in the hepatic tumor or hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy (HAIC). All patients received 179 times of the intervention therapy in total. RESULTS: Blood supplies were identified in the 50 cases with angiography, which showed that 35 cases had abundant vessels, while 15 cases had poor blood supply. Twenty-two cases were found either collateral blood supply, or portal vein invasion or arterial-portal vein fistula. The best curative efficacy was complete remission (CR) in 4 cases, partial remission (PR) in 28 cases and stable disease (SD) in 18 cases during the process of treatment. The angiography (P=0.047) and the frequency of intervention (P=0.037) showed significantly statistical difference with Kaplan-Meier analysis. The Cox analysis showed that more than 3 times of interventional therapy was an independent prognostic factor. CONCLUSIONS: Interventional treatment is safe and effective for GEP-NETs, and is beneficial to patients with main hepatic metastases after endocrine therapy.