Neuroendocrine Cancer Care

When you’re a patient at Swedish, we don’t just treat your neuroendocrine cancer – we treat you. We use the most advanced treatments to create a highly personalized care plan. We also support you and your loved ones with a full range of services throughout your entire cancer journey. The result is effective, whole-person care for your body, mind and spirit.

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Why Choose Swedish for Your Neuroendocrine Cancer Care?

At Swedish, we see the life in you. Together, let’s finish cancer – so you don’t have to miss any of life’s special moments.

No two patients, or their treatment plans, are alike. This is why, at Swedish, we take a highly personalized approach to your neuroendocrine cancer care. You’ll experience this through our multidisciplinary tumor boards, where your oncology team collaborates with other cancer care experts about your specific diagnosis. We also offer a Molecular Tumor Board, where we evaluate your genomic and clinical information to find the best genetically matched treatment for you. Your oncology team will work with you directly to design a treatment plan that fits your personal needs. It’s an approach that combines leading-edge treatment with the compassionate care Swedish is known for. Why? Because we know this results in the best outcomes.

As a patient, you’ll be supported through your entire cancer journey by a multidisciplinary cancer care team. You’ll be treated by board-certified medical oncologists, radiation oncologists and surgeons. It’s a team-based approach to neuroendocrine cancer care. Your cancer team may also include oncology nurse navigators and other cancer specialists. We also provide you and your family with a full range of support services well beyond conventional treatment, from genetic counseling and education to nutrition and pain management.

Learn more about the experts who make up our multidisciplinary cancer care teams.

Cancer doesn’t discriminate, but access to great neuroendocrine cancer care hasn’t always been the same for everyone. At Swedish, we are deeply committed to making sure every patient we treat has access to the best cancer care. We offer various location-specific services to help our patients receive equitable care, such as translation for non-English-speaking patients, telehealth and transportation assistance. We value, respect and support the racial, ethnic, religious, spiritual, gender, and sexual identities of each member of our diverse communities, and we welcome all patients, regardless of their ability to pay. We aim to make sure every patient is treated equally and with dignity – whoever you are, and wherever you’re at.

At any given time, the Swedish Cancer Institute offers patients more than 140 clinical-research studies involving most types of cancers. Clinical trials give patients access to promising new medications and procedures before they are widely available. Such trials are also the primary way that progress is made in finding better approaches to treatment and cure. Additionally, our physician specialists collaborate with other regional and national research groups, including Southwest Oncology Group, National Cancer Institute, Puget Sound Oncology Consortium and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

About Neuroendocrine Cancer

Neuroendocrine cancer is a rare cancer that can form anywhere in the body where neuroendocrine cells are present. Neuroendocrine tumors most frequently occur in the lungs, GI tract, pancreas and prostate. Some are aggressive and grow rapidly, while others grow more slowly. The expert oncology teams at Swedish use the most effective therapies to treat patients with every type of neuroendocrine cancer and its related conditions.

Testing and Diagnostics

Personalized Treatment for Neuroendocrine Cancer

We take a team approach to your neuroendocrine cancer treatment because we know this offers the best success in controlling and curing cancer. Your multidisciplinary cancer care team will work with you to design an individualized cancer care plan, from diagnosis to post-treatment support. We offer many different therapies across our Swedish locations. Depending on your condition, your personal care plan may include one or more of the following:

Systemic Therapies Surgical Therapies Radiation Therapies

Systemic Therapies

Systemic therapies travel through the bloodstream and affect cells in other body parts. They are used for patients whose cancer has spread to other areas of the body or if there’s a high risk of spread. Sophisticated genetic analysis allows us to target therapies to specific DNA mutations that cause cancer cells to develop and grow. Systemic therapies include:

Chemotherapy is the systemic use of cytotoxic chemicals to kill cancer cells. Today there are many medications (e.g., biological medications, immune treatments, targeted therapies) that do not fit the classic definition of chemotherapy yet are often included in this category.

Clinical trials represent research protocols that include the use of new drugs or drug combinations in a specific clinical situation.

Immunotherapy uses drugs to allow the body’s own immune system to more effectively find and destroy cancer cells.

Molecularly targeted therapy is the use of drugs that are molecularly targeted at a genetic mutation that has allowed the cancer to grow. This therapy enables personalized treatments for patients who carry certain genetic mutations or abnormalities.

Somatostatin analogues are man-made synthetic compounds that inhibit the excessive production of naturally occurring hormones that overproduce in some neuroendocrine cancers. This therapy helps control symptoms of carcinoid syndrome, such as diarrhea, flushing, pain, palpations, wheezing and hypertension. The treatment may also cause shrinkage in some tumors.

Surgical Therapies

Surgical therapies involve an operation or procedure to remove cancer from the body. Surgery may be the main treatment for some invasive cancers, but it’s only one part of the entire treatment plan. Surgical therapies include:

Appendectomy is surgical removal of the appendix.

Robotic/laparoscopic low anterior resection is a procedure in which a portion of the rectum is removed; the colon is then attached to the remaining part of the rectum. This allows the patient to have bowel movements normally.

Robotic-assisted surgery allows for better and more controlled access, giving the surgeon a clear and magnified view of the surgical area. It allows them to use smaller instruments and move with greater precision in a minimally invasive fashion, all of which results in less pain and a quicker recovery.

This advanced procedure requires a sophisticated facility and equipment, along with highly specialized physicians. It is available at some Swedish locations.

Metastasectomy/cytoreductive surgery is a surgical procedure to remove visible or accessible metastatic tumors in various parts of the body.

Robotic/laparoscopic partial colectomy is a surgery to remove the cancerous part of the colon. The two healthy ends of the colon are then attached to each other.

This advanced procedure requires a sophisticated facility and equipment, along with highly specialized physicians. It is available at some Swedish locations.

Laparoscopic  pancreatectomy & Open pancreatectomy is surgical removal of part of the pancreas and possibly the spleen.

Total Pancreatectomy is a rare surgery used to treat extreme cases of chronic pancreatitis or cancer. It involves removing the pancreas, bile duct, spleen, gallbladder, part of the small intestine and affected lymph nodes.

Neuroendocrine resection is surgical removal of glands, organs and tissues related to the neuroendocrine system.

Radiation Therapies

Radiation therapy uses high-energy radiation from a source like X-rays or photons to kill cancer cells or shrink tumors. It may be part of a treatment plan that also includes systemic therapies and/or surgery. Radiation is sometimes used to help ease a patient’s pain or discomfort. Radiation therapies include:

Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) are advanced types of radiation therapies. IMRT uses advanced technology to manipulate the radiation beams to conform to the shape of a tumor. VMAT is a subtype of IMRT in which the machine actively delivers radiation beams while moving in an arc around the patient.

This method of radiation delivery offers next-generation capabilities. The arc-based therapy provided via VMAT delivers high doses of radiation to more focused areas, reducing side effects and the overall treatment time for the patient. This treatment is particularly effective at treating several types of cancer while at the same time reducing toxicity and harm to vital organs.

This procedure is one of several new ways to deliver radiation therapy. It requires a sophisticated facility and equipment, along with highly specialized physicians. It is available at some Swedish locations.

Radiopharmaceuticals (Lu-177) is a radioisotope that is combined with a delivery molecule to specifically target a type of cancer cell in some neuroendocrine tumors and prostate cancers. This radiopharmaceutical compound simulates the action of a naturally occurring substance and binds to cancer cells. This interaction slows the growth of cancer cells, while at the same time working to destroy them using a radioactive particle inside the cell to damage the cancer cells’ DNA.

The elegance of this therapy lies in its ability to bind the medication directly to cancer cells and to apply radiation from inside the cancer cell – thus delivering a potent dose that does not penetrate very far, thereby sparing normal adjacent healthy cells.

This procedure is one of several new ways to deliver radiation therapy intravenously. It requires a sophisticated facility and equipment, along with highly specialized and licensed physicians. It is available at some Swedish locations.

Stereotactic radiation (SABR/SBRT) is a group of treatments that includes stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) and stereotactic ablative radiation (SABR) – both of which are adaptations of stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) – for the treatment of targets in the body, but outside the brain. Similar to SRS, these techniques deliver very high doses of radiation using sophisticated motion management and patient immobilization techniques.

The number of radiation treatments is minimal and may range from one to five treatments delivered over one to two weeks.

Surface-guided radiation therapy (SGRT/SIGRT) is an approach to radiation targeting that offers real-time beam guidance from face and body surface-recognition systems.

This treatment is particularly effective at treating several types of cancer while at the same time reducing toxicity and harm to vital organs, thus minimizing side effects.

This advanced procedure requires a sophisticated facility and equipment, along with highly specialized physicians. It is available at some Swedish locations.

Three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3DCRT) is a radiation planning and treatment technique in which three-dimensional (3D) imaging enables improved targeting for radiation treatment. 3D planning with CT imaging makes radiation treatment much more conformal, or tailored to the target.

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Accreditations

We are proud to see our dedication to our cancer patients recognized by some of the most well-respected programs and institutions in the United States. Several of our Swedish locations have achieved the following accreditations: