Carcinoma neuroendocrino de células grandes de pulmón: análisis de una serie de once casos en un hospital universitario

purpose: lung carcinomas with neuroendocrine differentiation are a heterogeneous group of tumors related to typical and atypical carcinoids, neuroendocrine large-cell carcinomas (nlcc) and small-cell lung cancer (sclc). nlcc comprises less than 5% of non small-cell lung cancer (nsclc). in this report, we describe a series of nlcc treated in a single institution in the last ten years. material and methods: eleven patients diagnosed as having nlcc (5 of them with mixed histology). results: at diagnosis, the mean age of the patients was 66 years (5 males and 6 females); 4 had localized disease, 5 locally advanced disease, and 2 metastatic disease. seven patients underwent initial radical surgery (2 of them followed by adjuvant chemotherapy), 1 patient received chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and 3 patients only chemotherapy. median overall survival for the whole series was 24 months, and the overall 2-year and 5-year survival were 45% and 27% respectively. conclusion: our data corroborate the general recommendation of treating nlcc in a similar way as the rest of the non small-cell lung cancer (nsclc) are treated. radical surgery is the main treatment for localized tumors. there are no data indicating a worse response of these tumors to radiation therapy or chemotherapy.