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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.
How common: no separate incidence figure in the sources read.
Treatment: transsphenoidal surgery first; first-generation somatostatin analogues (octreotide, lanreotide) or pasireotide, pegvisomant, or cabergoline for persistent disease, alone or combined; radiotherapy including radiosurgery for residual tumour not controlled medically, as the consensus documents describe (Giustina 2020; Giustina 2014).
The pituitary tumour behind acromegaly; the acromegaly consensus conferences give its clinical figures and the parent page the pituitary tumour figures. GLOBOCAN does not count pituitary tumours.
Gliomas infiltrate along white matter and can cross the corpus callosum, medulloblastoma sits in the cerebellum, and CNS lymphoma favours deep periventricular tissue; none spread through lymph nodes.
No conventional lymphatics: gliomas spread along white matter tracts and, rarely, through cerebrospinal fluid; medulloblastoma can seed the spine.
Same organ: Lactotroph pituitary neuroendocrine tumour (prolactinoma), Corticotroph pituitary neuroendocrine tumour (Cushing disease and silent corticotroph tumour), Gonadotroph pituitary neuroendocrine tumour (non-functioning adenoma), Thyrotroph pituitary neuroendocrine tumour (TSH-secreting), Pineocytoma and pineal parenchymal tumour of intermediate differentiation, Pineoblastoma, Papillary tumour of the pineal region, Choroid plexus carcinoma, Glioma & glioblastoma, Primary CNS lymphoma, Medulloblastoma, Paediatric low-grade glioma, Diffuse midline glioma, H3 K27-altered (including DIPG), Atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumour (ATRT), Ependymoma, Craniopharyngioma, Pituitary tumours (pituitary neuroendocrine tumours) and pituitary carcinoma, Brain and spinal cord tumours (all types), Astrocytoma, IDH-mutant (grades 2 to 4), Oligodendroglioma, IDH-mutant and 1p/19q-codeleted, Paediatric high-grade glioma (excluding diffuse midline glioma), Meningioma, Brain metastases (secondary brain tumours), Vestibular schwannoma (acoustic neuroma), Central nervous system germ cell tumours (germinoma and non-germinomatous), Spinal cord tumours (intramedullary and intradural), WNT-activated medulloblastoma, SHH-activated medulloblastoma, Group 3 and group 4 medulloblastoma (non-WNT/non-SHH)
Transsphenoidal surgery at a pituitary centre.
Somatostatin analogues or pasireotide, pegvisomant, cabergoline, alone or combined; radiotherapy for residual tumour not controlled medically.
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Query for this cancer: (TITLE:"Somatotroph pituitary neuroendocrine tumour" OR ABSTRACT:"Somatotroph pituitary neuroendocrine tumour" OR TITLE:"acromegaly" OR ABSTRACT:"acromegaly" OR TITLE:"Somatotroph tumour" OR ABSTRACT:"Somatotroph tumour" OR TITLE:"Somatotroph tumour acromegaly" OR ABSTRACT:"Somatotroph tumour acromegaly" OR TITLE:"Growth hormone-secreting pituitary adenoma" OR ABSTRACT:"Growth hormone-secreting pituitary adenoma" OR TITLE:"GH-secreting PitNET" OR ABSTRACT:"GH-secreting PitNET") AND (treatment OR therapy OR trial OR survival OR diagnosis). Results are unfiltered search hits about Somatotroph pituitary neuroendocrine tumour (acromegaly), not a curated reading list.
The targets of this cancer's medicines and the ones linked to it directly.
Cases by country, the UK and NHS pathway and other country lenses, and the expert centres with trials on record.
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