NEW YORK, Aug 24 (Reuters Health) - A drug that mimics the effects of a
naturally occurring hormone can shrink a rare type of stomach tumor, researchers
in Italy report.
Gastric carcinoid tumors, which account for less than 1% of all cases of
stomach cancer, are tumors of hormone-producing cells in the stomach. Most of
the time, the tumors do not spread to other parts of the body.
One type of gastric carcinoid tumor, type II, occurs mainly in people who
have a rare gastrointestinal condition called Zollinger-Ellison syndrome, which
causes hard-to-treat peptic ulcer disease and increased acid in the stomach. The
tumors are usually removed surgically, although a drug is sometimes effective at
reducing the tumors.
Dr. Paola Tomassetti and colleagues at the University of Bologna, Italy,
report that injections of drugs that mimic a hormone called somatostatin--or
somatostatin analogues, as they are known--shrank the tumors in three patients.
Somatostatin, which is produced in the hypothalamus, prevents the release of a
number of hormones and enzymes, including gastrin, which stimulates the flow of
gastric juice, bile and pancreatic enzymes.
Before treatment, two of the patients had 10 to 15 gastric carcinoids each
and the third had more than 30 tumors, the researchers report in the August 24th
issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. But after 6 months of treatment
with one of two somatostatin analogues, the tumors in all three were smaller.
And after one year of treatment, all the tumors had disappeared, according to
the report.
None of the patients reported any side effects of the treatment, the authors
note. However, one patient who had gallstones at the beginning of the study
experienced an increase in the number and size of the stones.
"We are continuing to treat the patients in an effort to determine whether
treatment can eventually be reduced or stopped," Tomassetti and colleagues
write.
