Pasireotide Responsiveness in Acromegaly Is Mainly Driven by Somatostatin Receptor Subtype 2 Expression

The response to first-generation somatostatin receptor ligands (SRLs) treatment in acromegaly correlates with expression of somatostatin receptor subtype 2 (SSTR2). However, pasireotide shows the highest binding affinity for SSTR subtype 5 (SSTR5). It has been suggested that in acromegaly, SSTR5 expression is better at predicting the response to pasireotide long-acting release (PAS-LAR) treatment than SSTR2 expression.

To investigate in patients with active acromegaly whether response to SRL treatment correlates to PAS-LAR treatment and to what extent SSTR2 and SSTR5 expression are correlated to the response to PAS-LAR treatment.

We included 52 patients from a cohort that initially received SRL treatment, followed by SRL and pegvisomant combination treatment, and finally PAS-LAR treatment. The long-term response to PAS-LAR was evaluated using a PAS-LAR score. In 14 out of 52 patients, somatotroph adenoma tissue samples were available to evaluate SSTR2 and SSTR5 expression using a previously validated immunoreactivity score (IRS).

The percentage IGF-I (times the upper limit of normal) reduction, which was observed after SRL treatment, correlated with PAS-LAR response score during follow-up (r = 0.40; P = 0.003; n = 52). After exclusion of SRL-pretreated patients, SSTR2 IRS was positively correlated to PAS-LAR score (r = 0.58; P = 0.039; n = 9), whereas SSTR5 IRS showed no relation (r = 0.35; P = 0.36; n = 9).

In a cohort of patients partially responsive to SRLs, the IGF-I-lowering effects of PAS-LAR treatment correlated with the effect of SRL treatment and seemed to be mainly driven by SSTR2 expression instead of SSTR5.