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Medical therapy for refractory pituitary adenomas

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Abstract

Introduction

Refractory pituitary adenomas are those that have progressed following standard of care treatments. Medical therapy options for these challenging tumors are limited.

Purpose

To review the landscape of tumor directed medical therapies and off-label investigational approaches for refractory pituitary adenomas.

Methods

Literature on medical therapies for refractory adenomas was reviewed.

Results

The established first-line medical therapy for refractory adenomas is temozolomide, which importantly may increase survival, but clinical trial data are still needed to clearly establish its efficacy, identify biomarkers of response, and clarify eligibility and outcome criteria. Other therapies for refractory tumors have only been described in case reports and small case series.

Conclusion

There are currently no approved non-endocrine medical therapies for refractory pituitary tumors. There is an urgent need for identifying effective medical therapies and studying them in multi-center clinical trials.

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Data availability

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Funding

This work was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute Cancer Center Support Grant P30 CA008748.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Medicine and Neurosurgery, Multidisciplinary Pituitary and Skull Base Tumor Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, David H. Koch Center for Cancer Care, 530 East 74th Street, Box 19, New York, NY, 10021, USA

    Eliza B. Geer

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  1. Eliza B. Geer
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Contributions

E.B. Geer completed all of the work for this manuscript.

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Correspondence to Eliza B. Geer.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Geer, E.B. Medical therapy for refractory pituitary adenomas. Pituitary 26, 303–306 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11102-023-01320-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11102-023-01320-9

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