Octreotide may act as a radioprotective agent in acromegaly

Clinical experience shows that an increasing number of patients undergoing radiation treatment for recurring acromegaly or acromegaly persisting after surgery are treated with octreotide. We, therefore, performed a follow-up study of patients undergoing stereotactic radiosurgery (Gamma Knife) to det ermine whether this medication has an influence on the ultimate result of r adiation therapy in either a positive or negative sense. It has been sugges ted that the combination of radiation with antisecretory drugs may increase the effectiveness of radiation. A follow-up study of 31 patients suffering from recurrent acromegaly and acromegaly persisting after surgery, and who had been treated with stereotactic radiosurgery, showed that patients trea ted with octreotide at the time of radiation application simultaneously rea ched a normal level of growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor-I only after a significantly longer interval than patients who did not receive th e drug. The two groups of patients did not demonstrate significant differen ces in the main clinical findings (age, sex, target volume, radiation dose, baseline growth hormone, and baseline insulin-like growth factor-I).