Balloon pulmonary valvuloplasty in carcinoid syndrome

Carcinoid heart disease: a guide for screening and timing of surgical intervention

The cardiac manifestations of a neuroendocrine tumour are referred to as carcinoid heart disease (CaHD) and are associated with a poor prognosis. Surgical intervention is the only proven therapeutic option and may prolong survival and quality of life. No consensus has been reached internationally with regard to screening for CaHD and the optimal timing for surgery. Although limited evidence is available on this matter, a trend towards early surgery and subsequent reduced mortality has been observed. In this review we provide an overview of the current understanding and propose a protocol to guide cardiologists in the screening for CaHD and the timing of referral to a specialised surgical centre.

Pulmonary and tricuspid valvuloplasty in carcinoid heart disease

A 26-year-old female with carcinoid heart disease consisting of severe pulmonary and tricuspid valve stenosis was admitted with line associated sepsis. She recovered from sepsis with antibiotics and aggressive fluid resuscitation but became grossly volume overloaded with evidence of tense ascites and lower extremity edema. She developed worsening renal and hepatic function due to congestive nephropathy and hepatopathy, which did not respond to intravenous diuretics, and she was deemed too sick for surgical pulmonary and tricuspid valve replacement. Pulmonary and tricuspid valvuloplasty was performed as a rescue measure to alleviate her congestive symptoms and improve her candidacy for valve replacement. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Cardiac Surgery for Carcinoid Heart Disease: A Weapon Not to Be Misused

Carcinoid heart disease (CHD) complicates approximately 25% of patients with a carcinoid tumor and carcinoid syndrome and leads to heart valve degeneration with mixed-stenotic and regurgitation pathology and consequent heart failure (HF) leading to significant morbidity and mortality. Cardiac surgery in symptomatic, severe CHD leads to significantly better functional capacity and prolonged survival when compared to medical treatment alone. Recent studies have shown improvement in postoperative outcomes of patients undergoing surgery for CHD over the last decades. The trend for early diagnosis and application of surgery prior to the manifestation of HF symptoms, which tended to develop during the previous years, does not seem justifiable based on the findings of recent studies. Therefore, the optimal timing of intervention in CHD and the type of valve that should preferably be used remain issues of controversy. This review comprehensively examines the existing literature on the treatment options for patients with CHD, with a special focus on short- and long-term survival after cardiac surgery, and discusses the selection of the exact patient profile and intervention timing that are more likely to optimize the benefit-to-risk ratio for surgical intervention.

Carcinoid heart disease: outcome after balloon pulmonary valvuloplasty

Carcinoid heart disease typically presents with pulmonary stenosis and tricuspid regurgitation. Management is intended for symptomatic relief, and valvular intervention is indicated in refractory heart failure. Balloon valvuloplasty is an option for patients not suitable for surgery. We report the case of a patient with a carcinoid tumour, who developed postoperative refractory hypoxemia. Transthoracic echocardiogram revealed carcinoid pulmonary and tricuspid valve disease, with severe pulmonary stenosis. Balloon valvuloplasty was performed with major clinical improvement.

Isolated Tricuspid Stenosis and Heart Failure: a Focus on Carcinoid Heart Disease

A rare clinical occurrence, heart failure in the setting of tricuspid stenosis should immediately trigger a search for underlying systemic carcinoid disease. Carcinoid tumor cells can secrete a variety of vasoactive substances that result in skin erythema, excretory diarrhea, bronchospasm, and hemodynamic instability, but these manifestations are noted only in a few patients. Right heart valvular disease is common since the vasoactive noxious substances pass through the right heart unaffected and undergo metabolism in the pulmonary circulation, thereby decreasing involvement of the left-sided valves. Localization of the carcinoid tumor followed by surgically directed valvular treatment is mandatory for relief of symptoms. In nonoperative candidates, cytotoxic chemotherapy or long-term symptomatic drug treatment with somatostatin is indicated.

Therapeutic options for gastrointestinal carcinoids

Although wide surgical resection is the optimal curative therapy for carcinoid tumors, in most patients the presence of metastatic disease at diagnosis usually renders excision a palliative procedure. This nevertheless decreases tumor burden, facilitates symptom control, and prevents complications caused by bleeding, perforation, or bowel obstruction resulting from fibrosis. In the stomach (types I and II) and rectum endoscopic excision may be adequate provided the lesion(s) are local. Long-term therapy is focused on symptom alleviation and improvement of quality of life using somatostatin analogues, particularly in a subcutaneous depot formulation. In some instances interferons may have a role but their usage often is associated with substantial adverse events. Conventional chemotherapy and external radiotherapy either alone or in a variety of permutations are of minimal efficacy and should be balanced against the decrease in quality of life often engendered by such agents. Hepatic metastases may be amenable to surgery, radiofrequency ablation, or embolization either alone or in combination with chemotherapeutic agents or isotopically loaded microspheres. Rarely hepatic transplantation may be of benefit although controversy exists as to its actual use. Peptide-receptor-targeted radiotherapy for advanced disease using radiolabeled octapeptide analogs (111In/90Yt/177Lu-octreotide) appear promising but data are limited and its status remains investigational. A variety of antiangiogenesis and growth factor-targeted agents have been evaluated, but as yet have shown little promise. The keystone of current therapy remains the long-acting somatostatin analogues that alleviate symptomatology and substantially improve quality of life with minimal adverse effects.

Current status of gastrointestinal carcinoids

Gastrointestinal (GI) carcinoids are ill-understood, enigmatic malignancies, which, although slow growing compared with adenocarcinomas, can behave aggressively. Carcinoids are classified based on organ site and cell of origin and occur most frequently in the GI (67%) where they are most common in small intestine (25%), appendix (12%), and rectum (14%). Local manifestations--mass, bleeding, obstruction, or perforation--reflect invasion or tumor-induced fibrosis and often result in incidental detection at emergency surgery. Symptoms are protean (flushing, sweating, diarrhea, bronchospasm), usually misdiagnosed, and reflect secretion of diverse amines and peptides. Biochemical diagnosis is established by elevation of plasma chromogranin A (CgA), serotonin, or urinary 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA), while topographic localization is by Octreoscan, computerized axial tomography (CAT) scan, or endoscopy/ultrasound. Histological identification is confirmed by CgA and synaptophysin immunohistochemistry. Primary therapy is surgical excision to avert local manifestations and decrease hormone secretion. Hepatic metastases may be amenable to cytoreduction, radiofrequency ablation, embolization alone, or with cytotoxics. Hepatic transplantation may rarely be beneficial. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy have minimal efficacy and substantially decrease quality of life. Intravenously administered receptor-targeted radiolabeled somatostatin analogs are of use in disseminated disease. Local endoscopic excision for gastric (type I and II) and rectal carcinoids may be adequate. Somatostatin analogues provide the most effective symptomatic therapy, although interferon has some utility. Overall 5-year survival for carcinoids of the appendix is 98%, gastric (types I/II) is 81%, rectum is 87%, small intestinal is 60%, colonic carcinoids is 62%, and gastric type III/IV is 33%.

Carcinoid tumors and fibrosis: an association with no explanation

Carcinoid tumors are slow-growing neuroendocrine neoplasms most commonly associated with the gut and broncho-pulmonary system. In many instances, they are identified at surgery for unexplained bowel obstruction or during exploration of the small bowel in search of a primary tumor once distant metastases have been detected. Carcinoid tumors of the small bowel often present with pronounced fibrosis in the peri-tumoral tissues, distant in the heart or lungs, and locally in the peritoneal cavity. Despite medical and therapeutic advances that have alleviated symptoms and prolonged life, a substantial subset of patients develops mesenteric and small bowel carcinoid fibrosis and/or carcinoid heart disease. Fibrosis, and increasingly cardiac heart disease, are important components of intestinal carcinoid disease and are of considerable clinical concern, as both of these conditions reflect a connective tissue disorder whose etiology, biology, and therapy are unknown. In the past, individuals with carcinoid disease died of metastasis and uncontrollable symptomatology. Currently, there exists no clinical method to determine the development of fibrosis and little is understood about the biological basis of fibrosis. The elucidation of the biology and management of fibrosis is thus an issue of paramount clinical and scientific importance in determining appropriate diagnostic and therapeutic strategy. Therefore, the unraveling of the molecular events indicative of fibrosis in these cells and the identification of appropriate therapeutic targets is of considerable patient-care relevance. We have surveyed the world literature over the past 40 yr to evaluate both the incidence of carcinoid processes and track the evolving understanding of this process. In addition, we have provided more current mechanistic information in regard to the biological basis of fibrosis associated with small bowel carcinoid tumors.