NETWise

NETWise is a patient-education podcast about neuroendocrine cancer, and its episodes end with a disclaimer from the Neuroendocrine Tumor Research Foundation. Jessica Thomas, the foundation's Director of Patient Education, introduces episodes. The format is narrated. An episode sets up a question, then answers it through clinicians, pathologists, researchers and patients, with narration carrying the thread between them. 'Episode 53: Understanding Pathology' starts with the first thing many people ask after a diagnosis, what exactly is it, and follows the answer into a lab most patients never see. That matters here because neuroendocrine cancers can look alike under the microscope yet behave very differently. The grading explanation is concrete: Ki-67 or the mitotic index places a well-differentiated tumor at grade 1, 2 or 3, and a higher grade signals a faster-growing, more aggressive tumor. 'Episode 52: Why Is Neuroendocrine Cancer on the Rise?' asks whether these cancers are truly more common or simply found more often. It first establishes how the tumors are defined, with Dr. Ulrich Frank-Poppe, a specialist in gastroenterological endocrinology and oncology. Greater diagnostic awareness is part of the answer, not all of it. One speaker notes that rectal neuroendocrine tumors are more prevalent in South Korea and Japan, and the episode draws on Dr. Dasari's research into racial differences in incidence and outcomes, and the difficulty of separating biology from access to care. Around the turn of the year, the lens shifts to research. 'NETWise Episode 50: The Year in Review 2025: Neuroendocrine Cancer Research and Clinical Progress' goes to Boston, where NETRF CEO Elise Gellerman opened the 2025 Margie and Robert E. Peterson Neuroendocrine Tumor Research Symposium, an event marking twenty years of discovery. In it, a researcher describes a microRNA that seems specific to neuroendocrine tissue, and the hope that measuring it in blood could one day speed diagnosis. 'Episode 51: A New Year— Where We’re Going' looks ahead rather than back, with a call for multi-institutional teams, shared data and close patient engagement. Anna Green, NETRF's Chief Scientific Officer, frames education as part of care. Spanish-language episodes sit alongside the English ones. 'NETWise Episodio 2: Carcinoma Neuroendócrino 101', a translation of an English episode, follows the approach of Susan Mechler-Promer, who coordinates an online support group and starts each newcomer from zero, and it draws a sharp line between slow-growing neuroendocrine cancers that can be managed like a chronic illness and the very aggressive carcinomas. 'NETWise Episodio 3: Cuidando al Cuidador del Carcinoma Neuroendocrino' opens on Holly Jensen and her mother, Jean Carney, in northwest Iowa, whose close relationship shifted when Holly was diagnosed with neuroendocrine carcinoma in late 2023. A caregiver in that episode, who now runs eight groups on neuroendocrine treatments, recalls what it meant to finally be acknowledged, and the episode presses caregivers to keep their own circle of support intact. What a listener takes away is orientation: the terms pathologists use, the questions researchers are still chasing, and a steady reminder to take it all back to their own care team.