Over the past four decades, the incidence of NENs has significantly increased 6.4 folds from 1.09/100,000 to 6.98/100,000 according to the SEER database. There are still no epidemiological data of NENs based on population in mainland China.
Gastroenteropancreatic Neuroendocrine Neoplasms (GEP-NENs) is the most common type of NENs which account for 65%-75% of NENs from all sites. However, among different ethnicities and regions, the most common primary sites are different. In mainland China, the top 3 sites of GEP-NENs are pancreas, rectum and stomach, while small intestinal NEN is much rarer.
Treatment of NEN patients should be an individualized and multidisciplinary comprehensive management. However, in mainland China, most of the physician lack a thorough understanding of NEN and they often refer these patients to different departments. NEN patients were handled respectively by each specialized department before 2010. Chinese doctors started to pay attention to NENs since 2010 when nomenclature and classification of neuroendocrine tumors of digestive system were updated by WHO. Thereafter, pathologists in China successively reached two consensuses on pathological diagnosis of GEP-NEN which were published in 2011 and 2013 respectively. In clinical practice, some large medical centers successively started to set up neuroendocrine neoplasm multi-disciplinary team (NEN-MDT). Various medical associations (including the disciplines of gastroenterology, oncology, and pancreatic surgery) have released several related guidelines/consensuses for NENs respectively.
Moreover, increasing number of experts from NEN- related disciplines and fields have gradually gathered together and founded several professional NEN study groups/ associations. Based on these cooperating platforms, experts with a common goal set about establishing NEN databases, carrying out multi-center clinical trials and basic studies, and formulating expert consensus for point-to-point implementation.