Lanreotide in Metastatic Enteropancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors

To the Editor: In the Controlled Study of Lanreotide Antiproliferative Response in Neuroendocrine Tumors (CLARINET), Caplin et al. (July 17 issue) 1 report that lanreotide prolonged progression-free survival in patients with grade 1 and selected grade 2 neuroendocrine tumors (hazard ratio for progression or death, 0.47; 95% confidence interval, 0.30 to 0.73). 1 Somatostatin receptors 2 and 5 (SSTR2 and SSTR5) are expressed in 70 to 90% of neuroendocrine tumors. The result on somatostatin-receptor scintigraphy is the most important factor that predicts the effectiveness of somatostatin analogue therapy. 2 For a long time, indium-111–labeled diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA)–octreotide scintigraphy (octreoscan) has been the standard . . .