Comprehensive Treatment and Innovative Therapies for Carcinoid & Neuroendocrine Tumors

The Carcinoid and Neuroendocrine Tumor Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is unique in Southern California and one of only a few programs in the United States to treat these rare tumors.

The Carcinoid and Neuroendocrine Tumor Center provides multidisciplinary team-based, state-of-the-art diagnostic and therapeutic services for managing tumors such as:

  • Adrenal pheochromocytomas
  • Gastrinomas (causing Zollinger-Ellison syndrome)
  • Glucagonomas
  • Insulinomas
  • Medullary carcinomas of the thyroid
  • Multiple endocrine neoplasia syndromes
  • Pancreatic endocrine tumors
  • Paragangliomas
  • VIPomas (vasoactive intestinal polypeptide tumor)

Advanced Techniques for Timely and Accurate Diagnosis of Carcinoid and Neuroendocrine Tumors

Because the symptoms can vary widely depending on where the cancer starts, diagnosing these tumors is often challenging. Often a diagnosis is made only after the cancer has spread to other parts of the body. At the Carcinoid and Neuroendocrine Tumor Center, advanced imaging and laboratory technologies are used to accurately identify these cancers at the earliest stages when treatment can be most effective.

Comprehensive Treatment By a Multidisciplinary Team of Experts

Highly experienced physicians specializing in carcinoid and neuroendocrine make up the core of the expert team at Cedars-Sinai¿s Carcinoid and Neuroendocrine Tumor Center. Other cancer specialists work with them to examine every diagnostic and treatment option. These experts include:

  • Endocrinologists
  • Gastroenterologists
  • Oncologists
  • Surgeons
  • Liver transplant surgeons
  • Pathologists
  • Anesthesiologists
  • Interventional radiologists
  • Nuclear medicine specialists

The Carcinoid and Neuroendocrine Tumor Center provides innovative therapies available at few other institutions. The center offers the most up-to-date minimally invasive procedures that can result in less pain and scarring, fewer complications and quicker recovery than traditional surgical techniques. Available treatments include chemoembolization, cryoablation and radiofrequency ablation as well as surgery, nutritional modification and drug therapy.

All patients at the center also have access to other Cedars-Sinai services, including the Cedars-Sinai Center for Chest Diseases, the Cedars-Sinai Outpatient Cancer Center and the S. Mark Taper Foundation Imaging Center.

Research at the Frontier of Medical Science

With funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other organizations, Cedars-Sinai is involved in many endocrinology-related research studies. Their work is focused on how carcinoid and neuroendocrine tumors begin and how these tumors can be treated at the subcellular level.

Patients at Cedars-Sinai's Carcinoid and Neuroendocrine Tumor Center have access to the latest clinical trials and investigations, which could provide major medical breakthroughs in the future.