Does somatostatin have a role in the regulation of cortisol secretion in primary pigmented nodular adrenocortical disease (ppnad)? a clinical and in vitro investigation

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Octreotide and Somatostatin.

Somatostatin (SST) receptors (SSTRs) are expressed in a number of tissues, including the adrenal cortex, but their role in cortisol secretion has not been well characterized.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 10 patients taking part.

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

The data of the 10 patients were analyzed before and after the administration of octreotide.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, single-blind and crossover study.

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

In this single-blind Octreotide study one party knew the assignments and the other did not.

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

The study was conducted at an academic research laboratory and clinical research center.

Expression of SSTRs was examined in 26 PPNAD tissues and the immortalized PPNAD cell line CAR47.

SSTRs expression was investigated by quantitative PCR and immunohistochemistry.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Adrenal Cortex, Adrenal Cortex Diseases, Cell Line, Hydrocortisone, Octreotide, Pigmentation Disorders and Receptors, Somatostatin.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, single-blind and crossover study of Octreotide and Somatostatin in 10 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.

Results are reported in around 5 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2014 (The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism), a journal based in United States.

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