Endocrine Abstracts

Cutaneous and subcutaneous metastases are very rare in well differentiated neuroendocrine tumours with a handful of case reports available to date. Head & neck and bronchial NET seem to show this feature most commonly. Such metastases can be very painful and display allodynia (pain occurring on exposure to non-painful stimuli), even if growing very slowly. We describe the case of a young patient who underwent surgical resection of a typical bronchial NET who developed painful, subcutaneous lesions 2 years after surgery. Imaging showed that some lesions had been present at time of original surgery and had grown marginally. We discuss the dilemmas in the management of a young person with disseminated well differentiated NET as well as options for symptomatic relief in this case. We also explore the possible mechanisms underlying pain and allodynia with such lesions. Finally, we place this case within the context of the limited literature on subcutaneous well differentiated NET metastases.