Clinical Signs of Malignancy of Bronchial Carcinoid

Abstract

The following conclusions were made from reports of 148 clinical studies of bronchial carcinoid in Japan in addition to 13 cases treated by the authors.
Most of the cases with carcinoid syndrome or increased urinary excretion of 5-HIAA had metastatic lesions. Therefore these clinical findings were thought to be signs indicating the spread of the tumor.
Metastatic lesions were found in atypical carcinoid with a primary tumor less than 2 cm in largest diameter. Therefore the tendency to metastasize was not always related to the size of the tumor but to the histological characteristics. It was suggested that even in typical carcinoid, the potential for metastasis increased in accordance with the number of atypical foci.