Twentyfive patients with acromegaly: outcome of clinical follow-up

Aim: Acromegaly is a rare disease which causes progressive outer apperience changes and systemic complications. This study aims to present data of acromegalic patients who were followed in our clinic.Material and Method: In this study, 25 acromegaly patients were investigated based on age at diagnosis, the time between initial symptoms to clinical diagnosis, sex, surgery, radiotheraphy, medical theraphy effects and side effects.Results: There were 15 female and 10 male patients, mean age was 45±8,9 (24-62), the mean age at diagnosis was 38±9,1, the time between initial symptoms to diagnosis was 5,2±3,08 years. Five patients were in remission as consistend with the current remission criteria. Hypophysis operations were carried out by different surgeons(these surgeons were not specialized in pituitary surgery). Four patients were operated using the transsphenoidal way and postoperative remission, development of hipopituitarism and diabetes insipidus ratio was 25%. Eleven patients were operated using the transcranial way and none of them was in remission postopratively. In 3 patients hipopituitarism and in 1 patient diabetes insipidus developed. Gamma-knife radiotheraphy was applied to 7 patients and remission rate was 28,5%. Convantional radiotheraphy was applied to 6 patients and remission rate was 33,3%. There were 22 patients using somatostatin analog theraphy with 7 of them GH<2,5 ng/ml and IGF-1 in normal levels.Conclusion: In this study; it has been seen that success ratios of our acromegaly therapies are low with respect to the literature. We suggest that we need early diagnosis, experienced pituitary surgeons and development of new medical therapies.Key Words: Acromegaly, clinical findings