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4 slides generated from the cancer page, with a quiz from the open benchmark and speaker notes that cite the sources. Arrow keys move between slides; Print gives one slide per page.
A somatotroph tumour is a pituitary tumour that makes too much growth hormone, causing acromegaly in adults (enlarging hands, feet and face, diabetes, heart and joint disease) or gigantism in children. Surgery through the nose comes first; if hormone levels stay high, somatostatin analogue injections, the blocker pegvisomant or radiotherapy bring them down, restoring a normal life expectancy.
The 2022 WHO classification places the somatotroph tumour in the PIT1 lineage with densely and sparsely granulated subtypes (the sparsely granulated tumour being larger, more invasive and less responsive to first-generation somatostatin analogues) beside the mammosomatotroph and mixed tumours (Asa 2022). The 13th Acromegaly Consensus Conference (2019) set out multidisciplinary management at pituitary tumour centres of excellence: surgery, radiotherapy and medical therapy, their results and side effects, and how they are combined and personalised (Giustina 2020); the 2013 consensus on medical treatment defined biochemical, clinical and tumour-volume goals and the place of somatostatin receptor ligands, the growth hormone receptor antagonist and dopamine agonists (Giustina 2014).
How it differs from its parent: the harm comes from the hormone rather than the mass, so biochemical control (normal IGF-1 and growth hormone) is the treatment target and predicts survival; the granulation subtype predicts drug response; and the disease is often diagnosed a decade after onset because the changes are slow.
| Setting | Approach | Guideline |
|---|---|---|
| First line | Transsphenoidal surgery at a pituitary centre. | not mapped |
| Persistent disease | Somatostatin analogues or pasireotide, pegvisomant, cabergoline, alone or combined; radiotherapy for residual tumour not controlled medically. | not mapped |