Antiproliferative effect of the somatostatin analogue octreotide on growth hormone-producing pituitary tumors: results of a multicenter randomized trial

What Was Tested

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

To determine and quantify the in vivo effects of octreotide on the cell cycle kinetics of growth hormone-producing pituitary adenomas.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 32 patients were involved.

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

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized and multicenter study.

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

More than one site took part, so the patients came from several places.

All tumors had been fully characterized on the basis of their immunophenotypic profile and their ultrastructural morphologic features.

Included were 16 densely and 16 sparsely granulated somatotroph adenomas.

In each case, immunostaining for the cell cycle-specific nuclear antigen Ki-67 was performed with use of the MIB-1 antibody.

The staining reaction was manually quantified, and a tumor growth fraction was derived in each case.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Acromegaly, Adenoma, Antineoplastic Agents, Hormonal, Cell Division, Growth Hormone, Ki-67 Antigen and Octreotide.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and multicenter study of Octreotide in 32 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 4 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 1997 (Mayo Clinic proceedings), a journal based in England.

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