Table 1.

Summary of studies investigating psychological symptoms in patients with neuroendocrine tumours

Ref.	Primary disease site	Correlation with treatment	Treatment	Number of patients with carcinoid syndrome/total patients	Method of investigation	Key results
Major et al[17] 1972	Metastatic carcinoid	No	Not reported	22/22	Not reported	50% displaying depressive symptoms
Larsson et al[11] 2001	Midgut carcinoid	Yes – prior to and following 12 mo of treatment with somatostatin analogues	Somatostatin analogues	20/24	Questionnaire – EORTC- QLQC301	Anxiety scores significantly lower at 12 mo than baseline, depression scores significantly higher at 9 mo
Russo et al[29] 2003	Metastatic mid-gut carcinoid	No. Experimental tryptophan depletion	12 patients somatostatin analogues, 2 patients no treatment	14/14	Cambridge Neuropsychological tests automated battery (CANTAB): intra-/extra- dimensional shift task, matching to sample visual search, rapid visual information processing and spatial working memory.	Impaired sustained attention. Not mimicking patients with depression
Larsson et al[27] 2003	Carcinoid tumour	Yes	Somatostatin analogues or interferon	19/19	Semi-structured interview	Fatigue, diarrhoea, worry about diagnosis and limited physical ability most commonly reported symptoms
Russo et al[19] 2004	Mid-gut carcinoid tumour with carcinoid syndrome	No	14 patients on somatostatin analogues, 2 patients on interferon 2 patients no active treatment. 2 patients on somatostatin analogues + interferon	20/20	Semi-structured psychiatric interview	Impulse dysregulation leading to diagnosis of personality change secondary to a medical disorder in 15 patients (75%)

¹European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) health-related quality of life QLQ-C30 questionnaire.