Prescription patterns of long-acting somatostatin analogues

Acromegaly and endocrine tumors are uncommon morbidities that are currently treated with different drugs.

To determine the prescription patterns of somatostatin analogues in patients affiliated with the Health System of Colombia.

Retrospective cohort study of patients of any age and sex treated with octreotide or lanreotide between January 2011 and August 2015. Socio-demographic, clinical (indications) and pharmacological (comedications) variables were considered. Multivariate analysis was performed with SPSS 23.0.

We identified 289 patients, with a mean age of 56.6 ± 14.0 years and female predominance (59.5%), who underwent treatment during the 56 months of monitoring. Octreotide was used in 56.1% of cases, followed by lanreotide (43.9%), both at approved doses. We found that 4.5% of subjects changed from one drug to another over the course of therapy, which was associated with being diabetic and receiving insulin (odds ratio: 4.27; 95% confidence interval: 1.23-14.84; p = 0.014). The most common indications were acromegaly (52.2% of cases) followed by neuroendocrine tumors (15.9%). The most common comorbidities were hypertension (39.4% of cases), depression (27.3%), dyslipidemia (23.3%), diabetes mellitus (23.5%) and hypothyroidism (23.5%). Being male (odds ratio: 0.57; 95% confidence interval: 0.35-0.94; p = 0.029) and belonging to the age group between 45 and 65 years (odds ratio: 0.44; 95% confidence interval: 0.21-0.90; p = 0.024) were significantly associated with a lower risk of receiving comedications.

Somatostatin analogues are being used at recommended doses, especially in patients with acromegaly and neuroendocrine tumors. Variables associated with change in therapy were identified.