Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction and purpose: 177Lu-[DOTA⁰,Tyr³]octreotate (177Lu-DOTA-TATE) is a radiopharmaceutical frequently used in peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT), which is a promising treatment modality in patients with metastasized neuroendocrine tumors (NETs). We purpose to evaluate the quality of life (QoL) in patients with somatostatin receptor positive inoperable or metastatic NETs throughout the three cycle’s (with three months intervals) protocol used in our hospital.

Patients and methods: We included 24 patients, 16 men and 8 women (age: mean=67 years; range=29–81). The majority (13/24 cases; 54.2%) were gastroenteropancreatic NETs. Patients were treated with a mean cumulative 177Lu-DOTA-TATE activity of 614 mCi (range: 303–1177 mCi).

Patients were invited to self-report QoL during PRRT cycles. We analyzed the overall QoL and specific domains of QoL according to the Organization for the Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire C30 (EORTC QLQ-C30) scoring manual.

Results: From 24 patients, 15 completed at least 2 copies of the EORTC QLQ-C30 at different time-points (during the 1st or 2nd cycle and during the 3rd). Twelve patients had progressive disease, eleven had stable disease and one had notable lesions regression during PRRT.

Regardless the treatment outcome, Global Health Status/QoL (GHS/QoL) and all the functional scales (except social status) improved significantly in all group (P<0.05). On GHS/QoL, we found an improvement on scores superior to 10 points before vs after therapy (Δ+10.56; P=0.003).

Besides GHS and functional scales, we observed also a favorable impact on disease-related symptoms as fatigue (P=0.00003), insomnia (P=0.0003), appetite loss (P=0.0003), constipation (P=0.033) and diarrhea (P=0.014).

Conclusions: A better health-related QoL in cancer patients with incurable disease is an important outcome of cancer therapy, especially when survival is prolonged. Therapy with 177Lu-DOTA-TATE significantly improved QoL regarding to several functions and had favorable impact on global health status even on those with progressive disease.