A Patient with Acromegaly Who Showed Remarkable Improvement of Hyperglycemia after Treatment with Octreotide

A case with diabetes mellitus associated with growth hormone (GH)-producing pituitary adenomais described. A 56-year-old woman who had been treated for diabetes mellitus for 3 years, was admitted for the treatment of hyperglycemia. She showed a few acromegalic features and her plasma GH level was 146±16 ng/ml. After improvement of plasma glucose level by insulin injection, octreotidetherapy (100 μg/8 hours) was started. Seven days after the initiation of octreotidetherapy, the fasting plasma glucose level was almost normalized without insulin injection. After the octreotidetreatment, urinary C-peptideexcretion was significantly decreased and the plasma GH level became within normal range. In this case, octreotideappears to have improved the insulin sensitivity by reducing the plasma GH level.(Internal Medicine 36: 345-350, 1997)