A Preclinical and Clinical Study of Lithium in Low-Grade Neuroendocrine Tumors

The content of this article has been reviewed by independent peer reviewers to ensure that it is balanced, objective, and free from commercial bias. No financial relationships relevant to the content of this article have been disclosed by the authors or independent peer reviewers. Background. Low-grade neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) respond poorly to chemotherapy; effective, less toxic therapies are needed. Glycogen synthase kinase (GSK)-3 has been shown to regulate growth and hor-mone production in NETs. Use of lithium chloride in murine models suppressed carcinoid cell growth, re-duced GSK-3 levels, and reduced expression of chro-mogranin A. This study assessed the efficacy of lithium chloride in patients with NETs. Design. Eligible patients had low-grade NETs. A sin-gle-arm, open-label phase II design was used. Lithiu