WASHINGTON D.C. – Most patients with acromegaly who are switched to the long-acting somatostatin analogue lanreotide (SomatulineR Depot) injection from initial treatment with octreotide cite a preference for lanreotide as their future therapy, according to data released here at the 91st Annual Meeting of the Endocrine Society (ENDO 09).
The results, from the multicenter Assessment of the Ability of Subjects With Acromegaly or Their Partners to Administer Somatuline Autogel (SALSA) study, also demonstrate good efficacy and tolerability with self- or partner-inject lanreotide.
“The main message to clinicians is that patients with acromegaly can either inject themselves with the medication or have a family member rather than a health care professional do it for it for them, thereby avoiding monthly trips to the doctor’s office,” said SALSA principal investigator Roberto Salvatori, MD, associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Dr. Salvatori and co-workers tested the convenience, safety, and efficacy of self- or partner-administration of lanreotide in 59 acromegalic patients who were switched directly from lanreotide and in other patients who were treatment-naïve or not currently on lanreotide.
The study’s primary endpoint was the percentage of patients/partners competent to self- or partner-administer lanreotide at study completion as assessed by the health care professional. .
Overall, 41 patients said they were able to correctly self-inject, and the other 18 were able to correctly partner- inject lanreotide.
Self- or partner -administration of lanreotide was associated with insulin growth factor (IGF)-1 and growth hormone (GH ) control in many patients with acromegaly (73.1% of switch and 30.4% of other patients) at the end of the trial.
Self- or partner-administration of lanreotide was generally well tolerated, and fewer lanreotide-treated patients described their injections as painful.
Eight one percent of patients said they preferred lanreotide for future use, 13 percent favored octreotide, and six percent voiced no preference.
Dr. Salvatori said that about 50 to 60% of patients with active acromegaly respond to the somatostatin analogue class of medications. The ideal patient, he added, is a patient who has either failed surgery (not cured) or for whom surgery would be risky (coexisting diseases) as well as the patient who is unlikely to be cured (tumors with extension in nonoperable areas but without compression of the vision pathways).
Acromegaly results from an excessive production of growth hormone, which produces an enlargement and overgrowth of many organs, bones, and soft tissues as well as metabolic and biochemical changes. About three to four out of every million adults will develop the condition each year.
The disorder is often misdiagnosed because of its wide range of symptoms and their slow onset, and it may take in some cases take up to ten years to establish a correct diagnosis. Unless treated, acromegaly can lead to severe sequelae, including the onset of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, and colon cancer.
Written by Jill Stain
Jill Stein is a Paris-based freelance medical writer.
jillstein03(at)gmail.com