Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: Acromegaly is associated with increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. But the data about the evaluation of coagulation and fibrinolysis in acromegalic patients is very limited and to our knowledge, platelet function analysis has never been investigated. So we aimed to investigate the levels of protein C, protein S, fibrinogen, antithrombin 3, and platelet function analysis in patients with acromegaly.Methods: Thirty-nine patients wit...

Introduction: Acromegaly is characterised by chronic exposure to high GH and IGF1 levels that leads to increased bone turnover. Regardless of BMD value, acromegalic patients seem to have an increased vertebral fracture risk probably due to a reduction of bone quality. Trabecular bone score (TBS) is a new index used for assessing bone microarchitecture. In this study TBS was used for the first time to analyze bone quality in acromegaly.Methods: 16 new acr...

Introduction: Patients with acromegaly are frequently left with long-term adverse sequelae. When compared with individuals with other pituitary adenomas, patients with acromegaly demonstrate greater impairment in their quality of life (QoL).Methods: The disease-specific questionnaire, AcroQoL, and the generic psychological general well-being schedule (PGWBS) were used to evaluate QoL in an acromegaly patient cohort. Longitudinal data were also collected ...

Poor hormonal and tumour responses to somatostatin analogues (SSA) in acromegaly can occur although the aetiology is often unclear. Two genetic syndromes are associated with relative SSA resistance: acromegaly due to AIP mutations (AIPmut) and the newly described X-linked acrogigantism (X-LAG) syndrome due to chromosome Xq26.3 microduplications. We studied whether SSA resistance in these conditions was related to somatostatin receptor (SSTR) levels in tumour tissues. We studie...

Acromegaly is a rare condition resulting from excess secretion of GH and IGF1. Acromegaly is frequently associated with subfertility. As such there is little data on the course of the disease during pregnancy, and of the effects of the disease and its treatments on the foetus.Objective: We describe known pregnancies in women with acromegaly within the Republic of Ireland over a 15-year period.Methods: We collected clinical, biochem...

Acromegaly is due to increased GH secretion usually sustained by a GH-secreting pituitary adenoma. Somatostatin analogues (SSA) can control GH hypersecretion in 60% of patients and tumor volume in 30%. The disease control is, in turn, associated with lower mortality and therefore to verify the optimal control of the disease activity is of critical importance to adapt the dose and the choice of alternative treatment. The criteria for optimized disease control had been assumed a...

61 patients (104 invited participants), within 10 years of active treatment for acromegaly, from five hospitals in the South West Peninsula (UK) (one neurosurgical centre) were interviewed to explore the experience of living with acromegaly, access to information, support and their ability to make decisions about their care. Semi-structured interviews by an independent consultant (60–120 min each) included 34 males and 27 females; 25–85 years old; 52 (85%) patients h...

Somatostatin analogues (SA) are known to revert acromegalic cardiomyopathy mainly in young patients with short disease duration, whereas pegvisomant (PEG) reportedly improves cardiac structure and performance in patients resistant to SA. To date, no data are available on the effects of long-term SA+PEG on cardiovascular complications. The current study aimed at investigating the effects of long-term SA+PEG on cardiac structure and performance in acromegaly. Thirty-six acromega...

Introduction: In PAOLA study, pasireotide showed superior efficacy over continued treatment with octreotide/lanreotide in patients with inadequately-controlled acromegaly; 64% of patients receiving pasireotide long-acting release (LAR) reported hyperglycaemia-related adverse events. Pasireotide has been shown to inhibit insulin secretion. The aim of this exploratory analysis was to investigate the effect of timing of antidiabetic medication (ADM) intervention on the fasting pl...

ATL1103 is a second generation antisense oligomer directed at the GH receptor. It is a 20mer with a phosphorothioate backbone and 2′-O-methoxyethyl modifications of the five nucleotides at either end intended to increase its plasma half-life and affinity for the target RNA to allow post-hybridization RNaseH degradation. We report a phase 2 randomised, open-label, parallel group study of subcutaneously administered ATL1103 in patients with active acromegaly. Appr...