Experiense of treatment with a growth hormone receptor antagonist in patients with hereditary form of acromegaly: clinical cases

Abstract

Acromegaly is a severe neuroendocrine disease caused by chronic excessive production of somatotropic hormone (STH), characterized by specific changes in appearance, metabolic disorders. In 95% of cases, the cause of pathology is STH-producing pituitary adenomas. The priority method of treatment for acromegaly is transnasal transsphenoidal adenomectomy. If it is impossible to carry out neurosurgical intervention, in order to prevent the progression of the disease and the development of complications, patients are recommended drug therapy with long-acting somatostatin analogues, and if their effectiveness is low, additional radiation therapy may be applied to the neoplasm area. The usage of a relatively new group of drugs, antagonists of STH receptors, namely Pegvisomant for the purpose of drug treatment of acromegaly demonstrates high efficacy even in cases of aggressive forms resistant to other types of treatment. In this article we present two clinical cases of hereditary acromegaly, when the initiation of Pegvisomant therapy led to the achievement of clinical and laboratory remission of acromegaly in patients with an aggressive form of the disease, accompanied by continued growth of residual neoplasm tissue and preservation of its secreting ability even after surgical interventions, radiatiotherapy and long-term drug treatment with somatostatin analogues. The results of the above clinical cases confirm the success of mono- or combined (in cases with continued growth of the neoplasm) therapy with a growth hormone receptor antagonist, Pegvisomant, especially in the case of aggressive acromegaly.