Epidemiology of selected endocrine tumors in Germany

The following article presents an overview of the incidence and survival rates of malignant tumors of the thyroid gland, the cortex of the adrenal gland and neuroendocrine tumors (NET) in Germany, based on the German population-based cancer registry data. Between 2012 and 2014, annually 7700 NETs, 6160 malignant neoplasms of the thyroid and 120 carcinomas of the adrenal gland cortex were diagnosed. Similar to many other industrialized countries, there has been a sharp increase in thyroid carcinoma of the papillary type since the beginning of the twenty-first century. The prognosis is generally favorable, but incidence rates have stabilized in more recent years. More than half of neuroendocrine tumors are located in the gastrointestinal tract, of which slightly more than 50% are well differentiated (NET grades 1 and 2) with 5aEuroyear relative survival rates between 70% and 90%. Survival rates for other types of NETs are considerably lower with the exception of neuroendocrine carcinomas of the small intestine and the appendix, where the survival rates are only slightly lower compared to NET. Remarkably, survival rates for women are higher for all localizations of NETs and these differences cannot solely be explained by a slightly more favorable distribution of histological types.