Long-term effects of lanreotide SR and octreotide LAR on tumour shrinkage and GH hypersecretion in patients with previously untreated acromegaly

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Octreotide and Somatostatin, published as a randomized controlled trial.

These therapies limit the evaluation of the long-term effects of somatostatin analogues on tumour shrinkage.

Neurosurgical and radiotherapy treatments cause irreversible anatomical changes in pituitary morphology, which can make accurate evaluation of tumour shrinkage difficult.

The researchers aimed to investigate the long-term effects of these drugs on tumour shrinkage and growth hormone (GH) hypersecretion without the confounding influences of previous therapy.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 14 women were involved.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were adults, middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

Twenty-three newly diagnosed patients with acromegaly (14 women, nine men) with active disease began the study; of these, three were lost for follow-up, leaving a total of 20 patients to complete the study.

Patients were assigned randomly to lanreotide SR (12 patients) and octreotide LAR (eight patients), and the randomization stratified patients to assure a balance between the groups with respect to baseline tumour dimension, age and sex.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized study.

The women were allocated by chance, so the Octreotide group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Tumour volume was evaluated by magnetic resonance imaging of the sella, and calculated with the rotating ellipsoid formula.

A morphological and biochemical evaluation was performed at baseline, 12 and 24 months after beginning lanreotide SR and octreotide LAR treatment.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Acromegaly, Adenoma, Antineoplastic Agents, Hormonal, Chi-Square Distribution, Growth Hormone, Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Octreotide.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Octreotide and Somatostatin in 14 women.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

Results are reported in around 7 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2002 (Clinical endocrinology), a journal based in England.

More context: the Octreotide compound page and the Somatostatin compound page, all human trials.