Subcutaneous octreotide therapy for malignant pleural effusion after pleurodesis with talc powder: a placebo-controlled, triple-blind, randomized trial

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Octreotide in this randomized controlled trial publication.

In this study, the researchers intended to investigate the therapeutic effects and safety of octreotide in patients with MPE undergoing pleurodesis with talc powder.

This study was a single-center, placebo-controlled, and triple-blind, randomized trial designed to investigate the therapeutic effects and safety of octreotide in patients with MPE in Tehran, Iran, from March 2020 to March 2021.

Why It Was Studied

Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials, IRCT20210915052492N1.

Registered 11 October 2021 - Retrospectively registered, https://www.irct.ir/trial/58776 .

Who Took Part

The patients were followed up with a chest X-ray 1 week, 1 month, and 3 months later.

Treatment failure, relapse, pleural effusion analysis, and side effects were considered the secondary outcome measures of the study.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, placebo-controlled and parallel-group.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Octreotide and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Octreotide group a baseline to be compared against.

The Octreotide group and the comparison group ran side by side rather than switching.

The primary outcome measures of this study were the amount of discharge from the chest tube before and after pleurodesis and the length of hospital stay.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Pleurodesis, Pleural Effusion, Malignant, Talc, Octreotide, Powders, Iran and Neoplasm Recurrence, Local.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Malignant pleural effusion.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, placebo-controlled and parallel-group study of Octreotide.

Its findings take up roughly 9 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2022 (Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer), a journal based in Germany.

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