THE ADVERSE-EFFECTS OF OCTREOTIDE ON WOUND-HEALING IN RATS

Octreotide acetate is a long-acting somatostatin analogue with protean physiologic effects. It is used primarily as an inhibitory paracrine hormone to treat a variety of medical and surgical disorders, includin g endocrine tumors and several gastrointestinal hypersecretory states. Because of octreotide's known inhibition of multiple trophic and anab olic hormones, we suspected that it may have deleterious effects on wo und healing. Twenty-four rats were randomized to one of three groups: control, steroid (a negative control), or octreotide. Dorsal midline i ncisions were made and closed primarily. Wound-breaking strength measu rements were performed 7 days later. The mean peak load (+/- standard error of the mean) for each group was calculated: control = 754 +/- 89 g; steroid = 378 +/- 32 g; and octreotide = 427 +/- 41 g. The differe nce between the control group and each of the other groups was statist ically significant with P < 0.030. We conclude that octreotide has sig nificant adverse effects on wound healing in the rat model and that th ese effects are comparable in magnitude to those caused by steroids.