Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0000737 (abdominal pain)
 31,184 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

We compared the clinical and biochemical profiles of 11 patients with idiopathic flushing (IF) with those of eight patients with carcinoid syndrome (CS). Patients with IF were more often women, had a longer duration of symptoms, and were younger. Palpitations, syncope, and hypotension occurred only in patients with IF, while wheezing and abdominal pain occurred only with CS; diarrhea occurred in both types of patients. Elevated blood serotonin levels were present primarily in CS. Increased levels of urine 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid was specific for CS but unsufficiently sensitive to detect all cases. Abnormalities of gut and vasoactive peptides failed to distinguish the two conditions. Flushing in carcinoid patients responds uniformly to octreotide (Sandostatin), but only one third of the patients with IF are relieved of the symptom. Patients with IF have features that distinguish them from individuals with flushing from other causes, such as CS, postmenopausal state, chlorpropamide-alcohol flush, panic attacks, medullary thyroid carcinoma, and autonomic epilepsy. Familiarity with the clinical and biochemical features of IF should facilitate evaluation and identification of these patients.
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PMID:Distinguishing features of idiopathic flushing and carcinoid syndrome. 246 88

The chemistry, pharmacology, pharmacokinetics, clinical uses, adverse effects and drug interactions, dosage, availability and cost, and indications for use of octreotide, a new synthetic analogue of the peptide hormone somatostatin (SS), are reviewed. Like SS, octreotide suppresses secretion of pituitary growth hormone (GH) and thyrotropin and decreases release of a variety of pancreatic islet cell hormones including insulin, glucagon, and vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP). Octreotide also reduces splanchnic blood flow, gastric acid secretion, GI motility, and pancreatic exocrine function and alters the absorption of water, electrolytes, and nutrients from the GI tract. The elimination half-life of i.v. octreotide is 72-98 minutes, compared with 2-3 minutes for i.v. SS. Usual administration of octreotide is by the i.v. or s.c. route. Octreotide has been studied in the treatment of hormone-secreting pituitary tumors and pancreatic islet cell tumors. Octreotide therapy lowers GH secretion and improves clinical symptoms in patients with acromegaly and may suppress clinical symptoms to a greater degree than bromocriptine. Patients with carcinoid syndrome and VIP-secreting tumors (vipomas) have had substantial improvement in clinical symptoms with administration of octreotide. This agent does not appear to be effective in the treatment of nonvariceal upper GI bleeding and acute pancreatitis; its relative usefulness in the treatment of variceal bleeding is not established. Adverse effects associated with octreotide therapy generally have been mild, including pain or burning at the injection site, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Octreotide has been shown to interfere with absorption of oral cyclosporine. Standard initial therapy is octreotide acetate 50-100 micrograms s.c. every 8-12 hours, with titration based on clinical and biochemical effects. Up to 3000 micrograms/day of octreotide acetate has been administered to patients with acromegaly without serious adverse effect. Octreotide is marketed under the brand name Sandostatin and is available in 1-mL ampuls containing 50, 100, and 500 micrograms of octreotide acetate. Because the conditions for which octreotide appears to be most effective are uncommon, the drug should be considered for addition to the formulary in tertiary-care institutions only; addition of octreotide to the formulary of a community hospital is probably unnecessary. The synthetic analogue octreotide is longer acting and more specific in pharmacologic action than SS.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
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PMID:Octreotide, a new somatostatin analogue. 265 11

A European multicentre, open-label 12-month study with Sandostatin LAR administered intramuscularly at 4-week intervals was initiated in 151 acromegalics responsive to octreotide. All patients received 3 injections of the 20 mg dose, following which the dose was adjusted to 10 mg in patients with mean 4-hour GH serum concentrations below 1 microgram/L (N: 29) and to 30 mg in patients with concentrations above 5 micrograms/L (N: 22). The GH level suppression was significant in the 20 mg dose group (p < 0.01) and for all 151 patients (p < 0.004), and was consistently maintained in all patients for the duration of the study. The suppression of the mean serum GH concentration to below 2.5 micrograms/L was recorded in 69.8% of patients at the endpoint treatment with Sandostatin LAR and 65.8% during prior treatment with Sandostatin s.c. A consistent suppression of serum IGF-I levels was also achieved. The number of patients with headache, fatigue, perspiration, joint pains and paresthesias had decreased significantly (p < 0.05) after the 6t]h injection of Sandostatin LAR vs. previous s.c. treatment. No patient discontinued the study because of drug-related adverse events. The most frequently reported adverse events were mild diarrhea, abdominal pain and flatulence. The local tolerability was very good. No impairment of safety hematology, biochemistry and thyroid function tests and no increased incidence of gallstone formation was recorded. Well tolerated and at least as efficacious as the s.c. formulation, Sandostatin LAR might become an alternative primary treatment to pituitary surgery and radiotherapy.
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PMID:Results of a European multicentre study with Sandostatin LAR in acromegalic patients. Sandostatin LAR Group. 1108 Nov 88

Advanced gastric cancer frequently results in the inability to ingest food or drink orally, a condition called malignant gastrointestinal obstruction (MGO). MGO is clinically defined as a gastrointestinal outlet obstruction caused by a large tumor, or malignant bowel obstruction with peritoneal dissemination. MGO impacts the quality of life by interfering with oral intake and by causing gastrointestinal symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. Octreotide acetate (OA) is an analogue of somatostatin which has been increasingly used to relieve gastrointestinal symptoms since it decreases the secretion of digestive juices and increases the absorption of water and electrolytes. In Japan, the oral anticancer drug S-1 was recently adopted as a key chemotherapeutic agent in advanced gastric cancer; however, its oral formulation precludes its utility in the MGO setting. This is a pilot study of chemoradiotherapy plus OA in gastric cancer with MGO. Patients were initially treated with OA to control gastrointestinal symptoms. Following resolution of their symptoms, the patients received chemotherapy with S-1 plus low-dose cisplatin and radiation. Irradiation was targeted at the primary tumor and surrounding lesions, including the lymph nodes. Grade 4 toxicity was observed in only 1 patient, and no treatment-related deaths were noted. After treatment, 3 patients achieved a partial response and 4 achieved stable disease. Of the 9 patients, 8 were able to tolerate solid food orally and were discharged. The outcomes of these cases suggest that OA is a useful adjunctive therapy that enables advanced gastric cancer patients with MGO to receive S-1-containing chemotherapy.
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PMID:Octreotide acetate enables the administration of chemoradiotherapy, including the oral anticancer drug S-1, in gastric cancer patients with malignant gastrointestinal obstruction. 2296 62