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Bronchial carcinoids
Last reviewed: 12.07.2025
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[ Symptoms of bronchial carcinoids
Half of the patients are asymptomatic, and half have symptoms of airflow obstruction including dyspnea, wheezing, and cough, which often leads to a misdiagnosis of asthma. Recurrent pneumonia, hemoptysis, and chest pain are also common. Paraneoplastic syndromes, including Cushing's syndrome due to ectopic ACTH production, acromegaly due to ectopic growth hormone-releasing factor, and Zollinger-Ellison syndrome due to ectopic gastrin production, are more common than carcinoid syndrome, which occurs in <3% of patients with the tumor. Heart murmurs due to left-sided heart changes (mitral stenosis or regurgitation) are rare and are due to serotonin-induced valvular damage (as opposed to right-sided valvular lesions due to gastrointestinal carcinoid).
Diagnosis of bronchial carcinoids
The diagnosis of bronchial carcinoids is based on bronchoscopic biopsy, but work-up often begins with chest CT scanning, which reveals calcification of the tumor in about a third of patients. Indium-111-labeled octreotide scanning is used to determine the extent of the lesion and the extent of metastases. Increased urinary serotonin and 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid confirm the diagnosis but are rarely detected.
Treatment of bronchial carcinoids
Treatment of bronchial carcinoids is surgical resection with or without adjuvant chemotherapy.
What is the prognosis for bronchial carcinoids?
Bronchial carcinoids have different prognoses. They depend on the type of tumor. Five-year survival for patients with typical (well-differentiated) carcinoids is over 90%; for atypical tumors, survival is from 50 to 70%.