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Endocrine Abstracts (2016) 41 EP890 | DOI: 10.1530/endoabs.41.EP890

1Third Department of Internal Medicine, Sotiria Hospital, Athens, Greece; 2Department of Endocrinology, Metaxa Anticancer Hospital, Pireaus, Greece; 3Mediterraneo Hospital, Athens, Greece; 4Department of Endocrinology, Alexandra Hospital, Athens, Greece; 5Department of
Endocrinology, Red Cross Hospital, Athens, Greece; 6Department
of Interanl Medicine, Attikon Hospital, Athens, Greece.


Introduction: Several studies have suggested that patients with acromegaly have an increased risk of thyroid, colorectal, breast and prostate tumors. We determined the prevalence of malignant neoplasms in patients with acromegaly in a single Greek Centre during the years 1995–2015.

Methods: We evaluated cancer risk in a cohort of 110 patients (M/F 48/62, age 58.63±13.8 years, range 30–86) with acromegaly. Mean age at diagnosis of acromegaly was 46.37±13.11 years old. A total of 42 patients had a microadenoma and 68 patients had a macroadenoma. Mean period of time since diagnosis of acromegaly was 12.26±9.6 years. 108 patients were treated with somatostatin analogues. Only 2 patients were successfully treated with pituitary transsphenoidal surgery and received no medical treatment afterwards.

Results: From 110 patients, cancer was diagnosed in 26 patients. Thyroid cancer was the most common cancer and was diagnosed in 13 patients (11.8%) and among all other cancers there were 2 patients with gastric cancer, 2 patients with endometrial cancer, 1 patient with breast cancer, 1 patient with colon cancer, 2 patient with prostate cancer, 1 patient with myelodysplastic syndrome, 1 patient with renal cell carcinoma, 1 patient with lung cancer and 1 patient with pancreas carcinoma. The mean age of patients with cancer was not statistical significant when compared with the mean age of those without cancer. There was also no significant difference in disease duration, pituitary tumor size, or age at onset between them.

Conclusions: This study suggests that patients with acromegaly have an increased risk of thyroid cancer. In conclusion, each acromegalic patient requires hormonal, ultrasound evaluation of the thyroid and FNAB if required, when the diagnosis of acromegaly is made. It is particularly essential to diagnose the patients early and to rule out thyroid cancer.

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