Surgically treated acromegaly patients have a similar quality of life whether controlled by surgery or requiring additional medical therapy (QuaLAT Study).

Purpose

There is no consensus on quality of life (QOL) in patients with acromegaly requiring medical treatment after surgery compared with those achieving remission by surgery alone.

Methods

QuaLAT is a cross-sectional study comparing QOL in surgery-only treated acromegaly patients versus those requiring medical treatment post-surgery. Patients attending clinics were identified and divided into—Group 1: patients who had surgery only and were in biochemical remission, Group 2: all patients on medical treatment post-surgery, Group 3: patients from Group 2 with biochemical control. Participants were asked to fill three questionnaires; Acromegaly Quality of Life Questionnaire (ACROQOL), 36-Item Short Form Survey (SF36), and Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS).

Results

There were 32 patients in Group 1 and 25 in Group 2. There was no difference in QOL scores between groups 1 and 2, as measured by ACROQOL (mean difference [MD] = − 2.5, 95% CI − 16.6 to 11.6; p = 0.72), SF36v2 [Physical component score (PCS) MD = − 4.9, 95% CI − 10.9 to 1.2; p = 0.12; mental component score MD = − 3.0, 95% CI − 10.5 to 4.4; p = 0.44], or FSS (MD = − 0.004, 95% CI − 1.14 to 1.33; p = 0.1). Comparison between groups 1 and 3 however showed that PCS (and 3 subdomains) was significantly better in group 3 (MD = − 8.3, 95% CI − 14.8 to -1.8; p = 0.01). All three QOL scores were lower when compared with healthy controls.

Conclusions

Medical treatment not only achieves a QOL comparable to surgery, it may also be associated with better QOL in physical subdomains. When compared with healthy controls, QOL remains worse in treated acromegaly patients compared to controls.