Acromegaly: Clinical Care in Central and Eastern Europe, Israel, and Kazakhstan.

Acromegaly is a rare condition typically caused by benign pituitary adenomas, resulting in excessive production of growth hormone. Clinical manifestations of acromegaly are diverse, varying from the overgrowth of body tissue to cardiovascular, metabolic, and osteoarticular disorders. Symptoms may emerge slowly, overlapping with other diseases and often involve many different healthcare specialists. In the last decade, efforts to provide an accurate and timely diagnosis of acromegaly have improved disease management and clinical experience. Despite this progress, marked differences in the diagnosis, treatment, and management of acromegaly exist from country-to-country. To address these inconsistencies in the region comprising Central and Eastern Europe, Israel, and Kazakhstan, a panel of acromegaly experts from 13 of these countries was convened. Acromegaly experts from each country provided available information on the approaches from their country, including regional treatment centers and multidisciplinary teams, treatment access, reimbursement and availability, and physician education, disease awareness, and patient advocacy. Across several areas of acromegaly management, divergent approaches were identified and discussed, including the provision of multidisciplinary care, approved and available treatments, and disease awareness programs. These were recognized as areas of potential improvement in the management of acromegaly, in addition to participation in national and regional acromegaly registries. Further experience exchange will facilitate the identification of specific strategies that can be adapted in each country, and widespread participation in acromegaly registries will enable their evaluation. It is anticipated that this approach will support the optimization of acromegaly patient care across this region.
Competing Interests: The authors declare competing interests as follows: MB reports personal fees and non-financial support from Novartis; grants, personal fees and non-financial support from Ipsen; personal fees, non-financial support and other from Pfizer; and personal fees from Recordati outside the submitted work. MD reports personal fees from Pfizer and personal fees from Novartis outside the submitted work. MG reports personal fees from Pfizer and personal fees from Novartis outside the submitted work. VH reports personal fees and non-financial support from Pfizer and Ipsen outside the submitted work. II reports lectures’ fees from Pfizer and Ipsen outside the submitted work. DK reports personal fees from Pfizer outside the submitted work. TK reports personal fees from Pfizer and personal fees from Novartis outside the submitted work. MK reports personal fees from Pfizer outside the submitted work. CP reports personal fees from Pfizer, Novartis and Ipsen outside the submitted work. SV reports personal fees from Pfizer outside the submitted work. RG reports employment with Pfizer. SP reports employment with Pfizer. DS reports employment with Pfizer. IS reports personal fees and other from Pfizer; personal fees and other from Medison Pharma; and grants, personal fees and other from Novartis outside the submitted work. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. This project received funding from Pfizer. The funder had the following involvement with the study: supported the face-to-face advisory board meeting and funded medical writing and editorial assistance.
(Copyright © 2022 Bolanowski, Adnan, Doknic, Guk, Hána, Ilovayskaya, Kastelan, Kocjan, Kužma, Nurbekova, Poiana, Szücs, Vandeva, Gomez, Paidac, Simoneau and Shimon.)