Health Blurbs

Carcinoid tumors are a rare type of cancer that most often arise in the gastrointestinal tract and lungs. Yet, they can begin in other organs as well.

Carcinoid cancer is slow growing and the disease starts in neuroendocrine cells. These cells are dispersed throughout various organs, with your digestive system containing more than anywhere else.

Your neuroendocrine system has many functions, including production of certain regulatory hormones. Carcinoid tumors overproduce and release these hormones, which is a cause for many disease symptoms.

The cause of carcinoid cancer is unknown. And carcinoid tumors rarely cause disease symptoms until later in it’s development. Symptoms of a carcinoid cancer vary depending on where it’s located.

However, gastrointestinal and lung carcinoid tumors represent the highest incidence.  Therefore, symptoms due to these cancer’s may cause:

• rash
• asthma
• flushing
• diarrhea
• wheezing
• chest pain
• rectal pain
• bloody stools
• rectal bleeding
• abdominal pain
• bowel obstruction
• difficulty breathing
• bowel habit changes
• recurrent pneumonia
• cough ~ with, without hemoptysis

These symptoms can also be caused by some other health conditions that are not cancerous.

Carcinoid syndrome is a group of symptoms that are typically caused by a carcinoid tumor’s over secretion of serotonin into your bloodstream. Those experiencing carcinoid syndrome usually have an advanced cancer that has spread to their liver. And a gastrointestinal carcinoid tumor is more likely to cause the syndrome then a lung carcinoid tumor.

For the most part, you won’t experience carcinoid syndrome until you’ve had a carcinoid tumor for many years. With carcinoid syndrome you may experience:

• diarrhea
• hirsutism
• sweating
• wheezing
• weakness
• palpitations
• heart murmur
• facial flushing
• shortness of breath
• high blood pressure
• secondary diabetes
• neurosis, psychosis
• asthma like symptoms
• unexplained weight gain

Carcinoid syndrome symptoms may worson due to stress, strenuous exercise and consumption of alcohol.

Circumstances that may increase your risk of carcinoid tumors include:

• family history of multiple endocrine neoplasia, type I
• health conditions that affect your stomach’s ability to produce acid ~ gastritis, pernicious anemia, Zollinger-Ellison syndrome

Carcinoid cancers secrete hormones and other chemicals that can cause a range of disease complications, including:

• Cushing’s syndrome ~ lung carcinoid tumor can produce an excess cortisol
• stomach ulcers ~ gastrointestinal carcinoid tumor can secrete hormones that increases stomach acid
• acromegaly ~ hormone secreted by some lung carcinoid tumors can cause this rare hormone disorder
• carcinoid heart disease ~ secrete hormones that can cause heart chamber, valve and blood vessel thickening which can ultimately lead to heart failure

Treatment for a carcinoid tumor depends on:

• your overall health
• carcinoid’s location
• whether cancer has spread
• type of hormones tumor secretes

Standard treatment for early detected carcinoid cancer is surgical removal of your tumor. And complete removal may be all that’s needed.

Chemotherapy, radiation and immunotherapy are some other treatment options for a carcinoid tumor that has spread or is causing severe symptoms. You may be treated with monthly injections of octreotide and lanreotide to block cancer cells from secreting the health adverse hormones that cause some the carcinoid syndrome, tumor or complication symptoms.

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