Survival Benefit of Adjuvant Chemotherapy in Pulmonary Carcinoid Tumors

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Chemotherapy administration after surgical resection of pulmonary carcinoid is not well studied. While guidelines state adjuvant therapy may be appropriate in some scenarios, this is not observed clinically. We reviewed the literature to examine if adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with resected pulmonary carcinoid provided any survival benefit. The aim of this review is to aid clinicians when deciding on next steps for these patients after resection. ABSTRACT: Pulmonary carcinoid tumors are a rare subtype of neuroendocrine cell tumor found in approximately 1–2% of lung cancers. Management is primarily through surgical resection, with limited benefit of adjuvant therapy in the clinical setting. Genomic profiling is in the nascent stages to molecularly classify these tumors, but there are promising insights for future targeted therapy. A total of 80 abstracts were analyzed for further review with 11 included in our final analysis. Only 4 of the 11 reviewed in depth provided statistical analysis. We evaluated PFS, OS, 1- and 5-year survival as mentioned in the studies. Nodal and KI67 status were also analyzed. Based on the current literature, there is no definitive evidence that adjuvant chemotherapy after resection confers a survival benefit in typical or atypical carcinoids.