What are Nets?
NET is a terminal cancer that affects the neuroendocrine cells, or those cells that produce and secrete hormones and are present throughout the nervous and endocrine systems. In addition to behaving similarly to typical cancers, neuroendocrine tumors cause the body to produce a detrimentally excessive amount of hormones, leading to asthma, cardiac disease, dehydration, diarrhea and bone pain. The most common types of neuroendocrine tumors found in adults are carcinoid and oat cell. While neuroendocrine tumors can originate anywhere in the body, carcinoid tumors are most commonly found in the gastrointestinal tract or lungs. Other types of neuroendocrine tumors are:
- 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)
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