Valentine Suteau

By Claire Briet, Valentine Suteau and Patrice Rodien

Pegvisomant is a GH antagonist used in acromegaly in gigantism. Pegvisomant is a modified GH molecule with pegylation to increase half-life and nine amino acid substitutions to modify GH receptor affinity and dimerization. Pegvisomant leads to an IGF1 decrease. It is administered subcutaneously every day with a median dose of 15 mg/day in meta-analysis. This treatment is indicated in acromegaly or gigantism in case of resistance to somatostatin analogs. This drug leads to a control of acromegaly in 90% of patients in phase III study and about 70% of patients in real-life study. In gigantism, only 50% of children are controlled with pegvisomant. It is a well-tolerated treatment with hepatic side effects in 3% of cases, headache in 2% of cases, and lipohypertrophy in 3% of cases. Pegvisomant does not act on adenoma size, and 6% of increasing tumour size is observed. Indeed, pegvisomant is an antagonist of GH receptor with a good efficacy which can be used alone or in association with somatostatin analog or cabergoline if acromegaly is not controlled by a somatostatin analog.

Part of the book: Growth Disorders and Acromegaly

By Valentine Suteau, Patrice Rodien and Mathilde Munier

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals have received significant concern, since they ubiquitously persist in the environment and are able to induce adverse effects on health, and more particularly on reproductive function. Most of the studies focused on nuclear hormone receptors as mediators of sex steroid hormones signaling. However, there are increasing evidences that peptides hormones of the Hypothalamo-Pituitary-Gonadal axis are targets of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (as Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone, Follicle-Stimulating Hormone, Luteinizing Hormone…). The majority of these hormones act on G protein-coupled membrane receptors. This review summarizes the effects of endocrine-disrupting chemicals on homeostasis of peptides hormone of Hypothalamo-Pituitary-Gonadal axis and on their G protein-coupled membrane receptors signaling revealed by experimental, clinical, and epidemiological studies in human.

Part of the book: Hot Topics in Endocrinology and Metabolism