Vasoactive intestinal peptide secreting tumour: An overview

Core Tip

Core Tip: Vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) secreting tumour (VIPoma) is a rare functional neuroendocrine tumour that typically arises from pancreatic islet cells. It is usually sporadic but may present as part of the endocrine neoplasia type I syndrome in 5% of cases. Excessive VIP secretion produces a refractory secretory diarrhoea which left untreated will cause patient's death. The majority of VIPomas are malignant and have already metastasized at the time of diagnosis (60%), being the liver, or regional lymph nodes the most frequent site for metastases. Complete surgical resection is the only potentially curative treatment, however, surgical debulking may provide palliative benefit. Other palliative options include somatostatin analogues and recently the peptide receptor radionuclide therapy which has shown to be effective and well-tolerated.