More from Endo 2026 and the fast moving world of pituitary medicine

I sat down with Dr. Leena Shahla, medical director of the Duke Pituitary Center to talk about the latest developments from ENDO 2026. Many in of our readers will remember her from an earlier Pituitary World News Podcast conversation with our co-founder, Dr. Lewis Blevins, on the tricky business of distinguishing pseudo-Cushing’s from the real thing. This time, the focus was the fast-moving world of acromegaly therapy.  Great conversations about new medications, and some of the challenges that regrettably keep affecting people dealing with their diseases. She also discusses a fascinating poster from Professor Jörg Flitsch, MD, Head Physician of Neurosurgery at University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany, reviewing a study in which assessed acromegaly patients for changes in cognitive function, sleep quality, and overall quality of life at diagnosis, retested three months after surgery.

Here she describes a German study showing acromegaly patients reporting better sleep, decreased depression, and improved overall quality of life. Dr. Shahla emphasized the speed of this improvement as the striking part after IGF-1 was normalized.  She underscore acromegaly’s burden well beyond the visible acral and facial changes; patients also suffer depression, fatigue, and diminished quality of life. While patients weren’t fully back to baseline, the rapid gains reinforce her broader point: earlier diagnosis and greater disease awareness matter, because they translate directly into improved patient quality of life.

In this segment Dr. Shahla discusses the new development and challenges in acromegaly treatment focusing the conversation further into quality of life measures and symptom control.  She touches on her experience with Palsonify, (paltusotine), an oral, once-a-day medication approved by the FDA in September 2025; CAM2029, a once-monthly injectable form of octreotide currently awaiting FDA approval, and the ongoing challenges chief among them Insurance approval issues.  Worth a listen!