Clinical considerations on 8 cases of abdominal carcinoids.

Eight cases of abdominal carcinoids are reported, 5 males and 3 females, whose age ranged from 21 to 66 years. The site of the carcinoids was appendix in 3 cases, ileum in 3, cecum in 1 and the ovary in 1. Synchronous metastases were present at regional lymph nodes and liver in 5 of the 8 cases. Radical surgery was performed in 3 patients, whereas in 3 cases nonradical surgery, due to the presence of nodal or hepatic metastases, was followed by chemotherapy (2 cases) and radiotherapy (1 case). The patients radically operated on are alive and free of disease at 22, 27 and 27 months. Surgery should be resorted to, when possible, even in the presence of liver metastases, since the life expectancy for these patients is longer than that of patients with liver secondaries from tumors other than carcinoids. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy seem to play a complementary role, if any.