NETest - Ronny Allan - Living with Neuroendocrine Cancer

Tag: NETest

The NETest is a non-invasive procedure that uses a blood sample to inform your doctor what the activity of your tumor is at the time your blood was drawn. Use of the NETest provides additional information about disease status that is complimentary to imaging and may decrease radiation exposure by decreasing the need for repetitive imaging. NETesting provides an assessment of treatment responses in neuroendocrine tumor patients in conjunction with standard clinical assessment. Interpretation of the test will facilitate identification of active disease and enable a determination of the efficacy of the current treatment modality. NETesting is as easy as having your blood drawn, and provides clinicians and patients with the information to better manage treatment.

07Mar 2022 by Ronny Allan No Comments

Clinical Trial: Testing the Use of Chemotherapy After Surgery for High-Risk Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors

Clinical Trials, Treatment

An interesting trial centred on SW USA. The use of CAPTEM following surgery in high-risk pancreatic NETs (G2/G3 well-differentiated). Also includes the use of NETest at 3 time points, which is very interesting considering the recent withdrawal of Chromogranin A from US NET Guidelines. (Read about NETest here). Randomized Phase II Trial of Postoperative Adjuvant Capecitabine and Temozolomide versus Observation in High-Risk Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors (S2104) is a recently activated National Clinical Trials Network randomized phase II trial designed to compare CAPTEM chemotherapy versus observation following resection of pNETs (see Figure 2). Patients with well-differentiated grade 2 or 3 (Ki-67 up to 55%) pNETS with a Zaidi score of ≥3 who underwent resection (or ablation) for either localized disease with or without up to five liver metastases are eligible for…

13Dec 2020 by Ronny Allan 2 Comments

Selecting patients and the Challenges of Evaluating Response to PRRT in GEPNETs: The Present and the Future

Clinical Trials, Patient Advocacy, Treatment

Share on facebook Facebook Share on twitter Twitter Share on pinterest Pinterest Share on whatsapp WhatsApp Share on email Email Fascinating article from the Italian NET scientific community. This article is more than just what the title says, it provides overviews on many facets of NETs including markers, scans and PRRT itself. It covers how to select patients for PRRT in the first place, i.e. who is most likely to get a good response to this treatment and then look at how to track and assess that response. The important thing I gathered from reading is that none of this is a precise science, there are too many variables. And while this article focusses on the clinical factors, there can of course be non-clinical factors in play in different countries…

11Jul 2020 by Ronny Allan 5 Comments

The NETest® – a Chromogranin A replacement and more?

A Spotlight on NENs - Testing Series, Clinical Trials, Patient Advocacy

Tumour Markers General For some years the gold standard tumour marker for Neuroendocrine Neoplasms (NENs) has been and remains today, Chromogranin A (and for certain scenarios Chromogranin B and C can provide some additional clues). Pancreastatin, which is actually a molecule of Chromogranin A, is another marker touted but appears to be limited to USA. Its main advantage is the ability to better handle the effects of Proton Pump Inhibitor (PPI) use which is prevalent in the general population. As we move to a new era of molecular/genetic tumour markers, there's a danger that NENs will be left behind, stuck with diagnostic tools not capable of meeting new demands. I see a lot of public criticism of Chromogranin A, but it's mainly directed at the problem of being skewed by…

19May 2017 by Ronny Allan 5 Comments

ASCO 2017 – Let’s talk about NETs #ASCO17

Clinical Trials

ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology) is one of the biggest cancer conferences in the world normally bringing together more than 30,000 oncology professionals from around the world to discuss state-of-the-art treatment modalities, new therapies, and ongoing controversies in the field. As Neuroendorine Tumors is on a roll in terms of new treatments and continued research, we appear to be well represented with over 20 'extracts' submitted for review and display. This is fairly complex stuff but much of it will be familiar to many. I've filtered and extracted all the Neuroendocrine stuff into one list providing you with an easy to peruse table of contents, complete with relevant linkages if you need to read more. For many the extract title and conclusion will be sufficiently educational or at least…

28Sep 2016 by Ronny Allan 23 Comments

Neuroendocrine Cancer – tumour markers and hormone levels

Patient Advocacy

BackgroundI think most people have had a form of medical testing at some point in their life, i.e. the sampling and testing of blood, urine, saliva, stool or body tissue. In a nutshell, the medical staff are just measuring the content of a 'substance' and then taking a view whether this is normal or not based on pre-determined ranges. These tests are normally done as a physician's reaction to symptom presentation or maintenance/surveillance of an existing diagnosed condition. Sometimes, abnormal results will lead to more specialist tests.In cancer, these tests are frequently called 'markers'. Most tumour markers are made by normal cells as well as by cancer cells; however, they are produced at much higher levels in cancerous conditions. These substances can be found in the blood, urine, stool, tumour tissue,…