Introduction.

Neuroendocrine tumors comprise a broad family of tumors, the most common being those located in the gastrointestinal tract, lungs, thymus, and pancreas. They occur infrequently and have a variable biological behavior. The objective of this study was to describe the demographic and clinical characteristics of patients with this entity in a highly complex hospital.

Methods.

Descriptive study with review of medical records corresponding to patients with neuroendocrine tumors, whose histological sample was analyzed in the Pathology Department of the Pablo Tobón Uribe Hospital in Medellín between 2010 and 2015. Frequencies of location, degree of differentiation and immune-histochemistry profile are described.

Results.

One hundred eleven histories were reviewed, of which 51.5% corresponded to male patients, with a median age at diagnosis of48 years. The most frequent comorbidities were arterial hypertension (38.6%), hypothyroidism (15.8%) and diabetes mellitus (11.9%). Medical history of neoplasia was present in 13.9% of the cases. 59.4% of the samples corresponded to primary tumors, 34.8% were located in the pancreas. The liver was the organ most compromised by metastasis (73.3%). Of the neuroendocrine tumors, 27% corresponded to grade 1 tumors of the gastrointestinal tract or pancreas, 36% to grade 2 and 27.9% to grade 3; 3.6% corresponded to low or intermediate grade lung tumors and 5.4% to high-grade lung tumors. The tumor markers with the highest positivity were synaptophysin (97.2%), cytokeratins AE1/AE3 (95%), CD56 (91.3%) and chromogranin (87.8%).

Discusion.

Neuroendocrine tumors have diverse clinical and histopathologic features. Knowing the characteristics of affected patients allows an approximation of local epidemiology applicable to future research.

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