Multicenter Evaluation of the Effect of Upfront Radiosurgery on Residual Growth Hormone-secreting Pituitary Adenoma From an Endocrinological Point of View (MERGE Study): a Randomized, Phase 3 Trial

Acromegaly is often caused by growth hormone (GH)-secreting pituitary adenoma and causes anatomic changes in the body and various metabolic disorders caused by increased GH and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF1). Surgical treatment of pituitary tumors is the preferred standard of care, but only 40-70% of patients can be treated with surgical treatment alone. In many cases, complete resection of the tumor is not possible and the hormone imbalance persists after surgery. After surgical treatment, several additional treatments are needed to prevent hypersecretion of GH and to normalize blood levels of IGF-1.

As first-line treatment after surgical resection, there are typically drug therapy and radiation therapy. The most common used drugs are octreotide and lanreotide, which are growth hormone analogues. However, according to the recent guideline, the endocrine remission rate obtained from post-operative drug therapy is only 17-35%. Although clinical trials are underway for new drugs, the burden of expensive drug costs, recurrence during drug withdrawal, and drug side effects remains major drawbacks. There is a need for therapeutic intervention to reduce the dose and duration of therapy, to prevent tumor recurrence, and to achieve rapid endocrinologic remission.

Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), such as gamma knife radiosurgery, has been actively introduced worldwide to control residual pituitary tumors and has been applied to more than 200 cases of intractable acromegaly. The effect of SRS on endocrine remission in patients who did not receive endocrine therapy was confirmed in the literature. In a study of 136 patients who underwent preoperative radiotherapy followed by more than 5 years of follow-up, 65.4% of patients reported endocrine remission. According to the recently published meta-analysis, SRS showed 93-100% tumor growth control and size reduction within 5 to 10 years after surgery. The endocrinologic remission rate was reported to be 40-60% at 5 years.

To date, SRS has been recommended for the treatment of growth hormone - secreting pituitary tumors in cases where surgical removal is not feasible from the beginning or if drug treatment fails after surgical removal. Only the retrospective study of SRS was performed and no prospective study was conducted at all. However, many institutions already prefer preemptive SRS treatment for residual tumor after surgery and have been practiced in many patients. Therefore, prospective clinical trials are needed to establish the basis for upfront SRS and establish the treatment strategy for patients who do not have endocrine remission after surgical treatment of GH secretory pituitary tumor.