This website is intended for an international audience, excluding the UK, United States, Canada and France
This website is intended for an international audience, excluding the UK, United States, Canada and France
Information about the emotional, physical and social challenges of living with NETs.
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If you’re living with neuroendocrine tumours (NETs) and you’re looking for clinics in your region and patient support services, then you’ve come to the right place. Search through the Get Support resources listed here to see if any of these can help you.
If your neuroendocrine tumours (NETs) have spread to your liver and cannot be removed by surgery, your doctor may recommend various medical procedures to target these secondary tumours. Many of these procedures are described in this section.
Radiofrequency ablation may be used in some patients with NETs who have relatively few secondary tumours (metastases) that have spread to the liver.
During this treatment, a needle is inserted into the centre of the tumour with the help of an imaging scan and a medium current is applied to generate heat that then destroys the tumour.
Radiofrequency ablation is a minimally invasive procedure.
You will be given either a local anaesthetic or sedative (general) anaesthesia before the treatment.
Percutaneous alcohol injection involves the injection of pure alcohol through the skin, directly into the cancer in the liver. This procedure is also called a percutaneous ethanol injection.
This treatment is performed during an ultrasound scan so that the doctor can see exactly where to inject the alcohol. The alcohol kills the cancer by dehydrating the tissue and stopping its blood supply.
Hepatic chemoembolisation and embolisation are procedures that are used for the treatment of liver cancers. Chemotherapy is injected into the hepatic (liver) artery that supplies blood to the liver tumour.
When high doses of the chemotherapy drug come into contact with the tumour cells it kills them.
Your doctor may offer you a different procedure called radioembolisation to treat the tumours in the liver. It is similar to hepatic chemoembolisation but instead of chemotherapy it uses radiation to block the blood supply to NET cells in the liver. This process stops the tumour from releasing its hormones into the blood system.
In this procedure, your doctor will inject tiny beads called microspheres into the hepatic (liver) artery that supplies blood to the liver tumour. The radiation from the microspheres damages the blood supply to the tumour and the DNA of the cancer cells, which stops them from growing.
Cryoablation is sometimes used as a treatment for tumours in the liver. In this procedure, a thin, wand-like needle (cryoprobe) is inserted through the skin and directly into the centre of the cancerous tumours. A gas is pumped into the cryoprobe in order to freeze the tissue to damage or destroy it. These tissue cells are then allowed to thaw.
Several cryoablation sessions may be necessary to damage or destroy the liver cancer. Cryoablation is also known as percutaneous cryoablation, cryosurgery, or cryotherapy.
Treating NETs
This section of the website gives you information about various medical treatments for neuroendocrine tumours. This is a general list of available treatments.
Please check with your own doctor to find out if a treatment listed on this website is available in your country and also if it is a suitable option for your case.
Patient support groups for NETs can often provide social and emotional support.
View a list of specialist NET clinics and hospital units in Europe.
Living with NETs - your resource for neuroendocrine tumours information and support 
