Evaluation of disease remission in patients with acromegaly
acromegaly
DISEASE, ACROMEGALY, REMISSION
In most cases, after surgery, IGF-1 normalizes within 1 month, and the level of GH during the first two weeks, however, in some patients, delayed normalization of their levels is possible. Therefore, the postoperative period of 6 months was taken as the minimum period for assessing remission.The analysis at 6- and 12-month follow-ups and involved 21 patients after microscopic surgery and 23 patients after endoscopic surgery. The remission criteria for the follow-up of patients with acromegaly were the absence of the disease’s clinical signs, a basal GH level of <2.5 ng/mL, a minimum GH level of <1 ng/mL (2.7 mU/L) in the oral glucose tolerance test, and IGF-1 level within the normal range according to gender and age. The basal GH level should not have been lower than 6.7 mU/L. The minimum level of GH had to be not lower than 2.7 mU/L in the oral glucose tolerance test after its intake when measuring the indicator every 30 minutes for 2 hours (