Reducing polycystic liver volume in ADPKD: effects of somatostatin analogue octreotide

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Octreotide.

No medical treatment is available for polycystic liver disease, a frequent manifestation of autosomal-dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD).

Who Took Part

The study group was 12 patients.

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

Those analyzing liver and kidney volumes were blinded to treatment.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and crossover study.

Because people in this Octreotide study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

As a double-blind Octreotide study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Octreotide could be set against what happens without it.

Each person switched between Octreotide and the comparison at some point, usually with a gap in between.

In this secondary, post hoc analysis of the above study, octreotide-induced changes in liver volumes compared with placebo and the relationship between concomitant changes in liver and kidney volumes were evaluated.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Cysts, Kidney, Liver, Liver Diseases, Octreotide, Polycystic Kidney Diseases and Tomography, Spiral Computed.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Octreotide in 12 patients.

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.

Its findings take up roughly 6 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2010 (Clinical journal of the American Society of Nephrology : CJASN), a journal based in United States.

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