Patient Point of View of the diagnosis, treatment and follow up in acromegaly: Single center study from a tertiary center
Acromegaly is often diagnosed late, with overall disease control achieved in 65.5% of patients. Increased awareness among healthcare professionals may help reduce complications.
Where it sits
this study against the rest of the lanreotide corpusSummary and findings
This study evaluated the awareness and perspectives of 58 acromegaly patients regarding their diagnosis and treatment processes. The mean age of patients was 52 ± 10.8 years, with 96.6% undergoing transsphenoidal surgery as primary treatment. Overall disease control was achieved in 38 patients (65.5%).
Abstract
<h4>Objectives: </h4> We aimed to evaluate the awareness and perspectives of acromegaly patients in the diagnosis and treatment processes, as well as to evaluate basic clinical and demographic features. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted at the Endocrinology Department of Yildirim Beyazit University between March 2019-April 2020. Fifty-eight acromegalic patients were enrolled. All patients were identified from our database and called for a clinical visit and fill the questionnaire forms. Results Fifty-eight patients were included in this study (41.4% female). The mean age of the patients was 52 ± 10.8. Median years from symptom to diagnosis (min-max) was 2 (1-12). 55.2% of the patients did not graduate from high school. Thirty of fifty-eight (51.7%) patients had knowledge about the etiology of their disease.While 12 patients (20.7%) noticed their initial symptoms themselves, 75% of the patients reported their symptoms during the clinical history taken by a health care professional. The majority of patients were diagnosed by an endocrinologist (69%). Acromegaly didn’t affect social life but affected work life and caused early retirement. Transsphenoidal surgery was performed as primary treatment in 96.6% of the patients (n=56). 46 patients (79.3%) received medical treatment with somatostatin receptor ligands (SSRL) (octreotide or lanreotide LAR) with or without cabergoline. Overall disease control was achieved in 38 patients (65.5%). Conclusions Acromegaly is usually detected incidentally by clinicians. The diagnosis of acromegaly is delayed in most patients and disease-related complications have already developed at the time of diagnosis. We think that increasing the awareness of the society and health care professionals will reduce both disease-related comorbidities and the economic burden on the health system.