From the editors’ desk – A recent Endocrine Web article by Kimberly B. Bjugstad Ph.D. highlights a new oral octreotide drug for Acromegaly. The drug currently is on an FDA Phase III trial, referred to as OPTIMAL, to explore the effectiveness of this drug.
The authors reached out to Pituitary World News cofounder and Medical Director of the California Center for Pituitary Disorders at UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco, CA. Lewis Blevins MD, for his comments – “Most acromegaly patients have thickened skin as a consequence of their disorder. The injections are often difficult, and a fair number of them develop subcutaneous nodules that are painful as a consequence of injected somatostatin analogues. Some of these drugs require administration by a healthcare provider while others can be administered by patients themselves or a family member. Thus, injections are challenging.”, he said.
The Endocrine Web article also quotes Susan Samson MD Ph.D., Medical Director of the Pituitary Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, who presented early promising results of the OPTIMAL study in an ENDO2020 abstract. The presentation focused on the comparison of oral octreotide capsules to placebo, the discomfort of frequent injections, and the reasoning an oral treatment is preferred to injections.
The article provides a summary of the advantages of oral medications in a disease where most drugs available are injectable and review of the current knowledge in pituitary tumors in acromegaly and their treatment.
Read the complete article from Endocrine Web here.
© 2020 – 2024, Pituitary World News. All rights reserved.
The drug has been approved. The name is MYCAPSSA and should be available in a couple of months.