Copyright: ©Author(s) 2026. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. No commercial re-use. See permissions. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc.
World J Gastroenterol. Dec 7, 2026; 32(45): 121126
Published online Dec 7, 2026. doi: 10.3748/wjg.121126
Published online Dec 7, 2026. doi: 10.3748/wjg.121126
Peptide receptor radionuclide therapy for recurrent neuroendocrine tumors after liver transplantation
Qi-Ming Zheng, Wen-Tao Jiang, Department of Liver Transplantation, First Central Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin 300192, China
Qi-Ming Zheng, Chi-Yi Chen, Li Zhang, Ji-San Sun, Hong-Hai Wang, Yan Xie, Qing-Jun Guo, Wen-Tao Jiang, Department of Liver Transplantation, Tianjin First Central Hospital, Tianjin 300192, China
Qi-Ming Zheng, Wen-Tao Jiang, Department of Liver Transplantation, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Diagnosis and Treatment of Liver Cancer, Tianjin 300192, China
Co-first authors: Qi-Ming Zheng and Chi-Yi Chen.
Co-corresponding authors: Qing-Jun Guo and Wen-Tao Jiang.
Author contributions: Zheng QM and Chen CY conceived and designed the study, performed the experiments, and made equivalent and indispensable contributions to this manuscript as co-first authors; Zheng QM contributed to the drafting of the manuscript; Zheng QM, Chen CY, and Zhang L contributed to the analysis and interpretation of data; Zheng QM, Chen CY, Sun JS, Xie Y, Guo QJ, and Jiang WT contributed to the critical revision of the manuscript; Zhang L, Sun JS, Wang HH, Xie Y, Guo QJ, and Jiang WT contributed to the acquisition of data; Guo QJ and Jiang WT contributed equally as co-corresponding authors; and all authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Supported by the Key Project of Tianjin Science and Technology Bureau Applied Basic Research, No. 23JCZDJC01200; the Independent Research Fund of the Institute of Transplant Medicine at Nankai University, No. NKTM2023004; and the Tianjin Key Medical Discipline Construction Project, No. TJYXZDXK-3-006A-1.
Institutional review board statement: The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Tianjin First Central Hospital (No. KELUNSHEN 2026-51).
Informed consent statement: Due to the retrospective study design, this study waived the need for written informed consent.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Data sharing statement: The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Corresponding author: Wen-Tao Jiang, MD, PhD, Principal Investigator, Department of Liver Transplantation, First Central Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, No. 2 Baoshan West Road, Xiqing District, Tianjin 300192, China. jiangwentao@nankai.edu.cn
Received: March 17, 2026
Revised: April 15, 2026
Accepted: April 24, 2026
Published online: December 7, 2026
Processing time: 212 Days and 17.9 Hours
Revised: April 15, 2026
Accepted: April 24, 2026
Published online: December 7, 2026
Processing time: 212 Days and 17.9 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: This retrospective comparative cohort study evaluates lutetium Lu 177 dotatate (177Lu-DOTATATE) peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) combined with everolimus in somatostatin receptor-positive G2 neuroendocrine tumor liver metastases after liver transplantation. In 7 PRRT-treated patients vs 8 controls, PRRT achieved a disease control rate of 85.7% and significantly improved progression-free survival (log-rank P = 0.028), with manageable hematologic toxicity (grade III in 28.6%) and no graft rejection. These hypothesis-generating findings suggest PRRT as a promising option for this rare cohort.