The importance of the chromogranin A concentration in evaluation of monitoring of treatment effectiveness with the somatostatin analogues in patients with neuroendocrine tumors

Neuroendocrine tumors (NET) are a group of relatively rare tumors; biologically distinctive with variations in clinical course what makes its diagnosis very difficult. The introduction of chromogranin A (CgA) to the biochemical diagnostics of NET improved significantly the diagnosis and is useful in monitoring of effectiveness of treatment with somatostatin analogues. At present the CgA is considered to be non-specific marker of the NET. The aim of the study was the retrospective analysis of the CgA concentrations for patients with clinically diagnosed NETs in the course of treatment monitoring at Saint John of Dukla Oncological Centre of Lublin Region, in 2005-2011. We evaluated serum chromogranin A concentrations during treatment with chemotherapy and somatostatin analogues in the group of 30 patients. The serum concentrations of the CgA were elevated in 71.4% patients with disease progression. At patients with stable disease course, up to 75% had unchanged levels of this marker. The effectiveness of the somatostatin analogues treatment is highly dependent on the patient commitment and good cooperation with specialist in the field of nuclear medicine in regard to somatostatin receptors analysis, as well as with clinical laboratory performing CgA test.