Commonly used drugs for the treatment of pituitary tumors

People don’t know much about pituitary tumors. This is a very dangerous disease, but if it is treated in time and the right medicine is chosen, it is still possible to get rid of the pain! Since surgery has great side effects, drug treatment is relatively much safer! So today we will learn about the commonly used drugs used in clinical treatment of pituitary tumors.

For pituitary prolactin-secreting tumors, more than 90% of patients (whether microadenomas or macroadenomas) can use dopamine agonists (short-acting preparations of bromocriptine, long-acting preparations of cabergoline) to control PRL levels and reduce the size of the tumor. Only those prolactinoma patients who are allergic or intolerant to such drugs, who have acute symptoms caused by tumor compression and need emergency surgery to relieve pressure, or who are unwilling to undergo surgical treatment, choose surgical treatment. During the treatment with bromocriptine, the dose of bromocriptine should be gradually increased until the serum PRL level drops to normal levels, and then the dose should be adjusted for long-term maintenance treatment.

Regardless of the type of treatment patients with growth hormone-secreting tumors receive, they should achieve the following treatment goals: eliminate the tumor, reduce tumor recurrence, achieve GH standards, relieve clinical symptoms, preserve pituitary function as much as possible, improve the patient's quality of life, and prolong the patient's life.

For growth hormone-secreting pituitary tumors, the main progress in the past 20 years is the application of somatostatin analogs. The clinical application of this drug has significantly improved the cure rate of GH-secreting tumors. In recent years, long-acting somatostatin analogs such as long-acting octreotide and somadulin have been used in clinical practice, which has greatly improved patient compliance. The preoperative application of this type of drug can quickly reduce the patient's serum GH level, alleviate the patient's symptoms, reduce the size of the tumor, and create good preoperative conditions for complete surgical removal of the tumor. Other indications for somatostatin analogs for GH-secreting tumors include: transitional treatment for patients with postoperative residual disease and patients whose GH has not yet been reduced to normal after radiotherapy. After the application of growth hormone analogs, patients with heart failure, sleep apnea, poorly controlled hyperglycemia, hypertension, and patients who cannot tolerate anesthesia have an opportunity for preoperative preparation treatment. Somatostatin analogs have also achieved satisfactory therapeutic effects in thyroid-stimulating hormone-secreting tumors.