Quality of Life in Acromegalic Patients during Long-Term Somatostatin Analog Treatment with and without Pegvisomant

Abstract

Improvement in quality of life was observed without significant change in IGF-I after the addition of 40 mg pegvisomant weekly to monthly SSA therapy in acromegalic patients who had normalized IGF-I on SSA monotherapy. These data question the current recommendations in how to assess disease activity in acromegaly. Moreover, the findings question the validity of the current approach of medical treatment in which pegvisomant is used only when SSA therapy has failed to normalize IGF-I.