Persistence of somatostatinergic tone in acromegaly

It is a matter of debate whether hypothalamic somatostatin (SRIH) secretion in acromegaly is preserved and still regulated by the physiological feedback mechanisms of growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor I. To gather further information on this, the reproducibility of plasma GH changes induced by growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH) administration was evaluated in 15 acromegalic patients. There was a highly significant correlation between the peak/basal ratio (P/B) GH response in the 15 patients administered GHRH on two separate occasions (r = 0.99, p < 0.001). The test was performed also before and after the administration of drugs able to inhibit or stimulate hypothalamic SRIH release, by activating (pyridostigmine) or inhibiting (pirenzepine) cholinergic pathways, respectively. The GHRH-induced GH response (P/B = 2, range 1.1-26.1) was increased significantly by pyridostigmine pretreatment in 30 patients (P/B = 2.6, range 1.3-34.8; p = 0.0045). In nine out of 30 patients an increase of greater than 2 SD of within-subject GHRH variability was observed in response to GHRH plus pyridostigmine when compared to GHRH alone. An inverse correlation (r = -0.37, p < 0.05) was observed between GH response to GHRH alone and after pyridostigmine pretreatment. On the contrary, no change of GHRH-induced GH response was observed in 12 patients after pirenzepine pretreatment (P/B = 1.9, range 1.1-5 and P/B = 2, range 1.3-6 without and after pirenzepine pretreatment, respectively). These data suggest that in acromegaly the somatostatinergic tone does not seem to fluctuate, and that it can be inhibited often by cholinergic pathway activation but not increased further by cholinergic suppression.