Dr. Kunz on the Importance of Tailoring Treatments to Patients With NETs

Pamela Kunz, MD, director, Center for Gastrointestinal (GI) Cancers, Smilow Cancer Hospital and Yale Cancer Center, associate professor of internal medicine (medical oncology), chief, GI Medical Oncology, vice chief, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Medical Oncology, Yale School of Medicine, discusses the importance of tailoring treatments to individual patients with neuroendocrine tumors (NETs).

Tailoring treatments to patients with NETs and continuing to develop more effective therapies are important elements of care for this patient population, says Kunz. However, the caveat is that many patients with well-differentiated NETs can live for many years with metastatic disease, so it is important that the risks associated with the therapeutic intervention don't outweigh the risks of the disease, Kunz explains. Moreover, it is important that therapies elicit disease control and tumor shrinkage while still allowing patients to maintain a good quality of life, Kunz adds. 

For patients with slower growing cancers, it's even more important to consider the safety profile of a particular therapy, Kunz continues. This makes tailoring therapies to be patient-specific in order to minimize toxicities crucial, Kunz concludes.