Below, Larry Katznelson, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, explains how this condition occurs and how it is best treated.
What is acromegaly?
Acromegaly is an uncommon yet chronic condition caused by an excess of a chemical called growth hormone, which—when elevated in the blood—leads to changes in the body, such as growth of the hands, the face and the feet and causes internal changes such as an enlarged heart and sleep problems and can lead to long-term risk and mortality.
What causes acromegaly?
Over 95 percent of cases of acromegaly are due to a tumor—a benign growth—of the pituitary gland. Rarely, acromegaly can be caused by growth hormone production from other parts of the body, which can include malignancies in the abdomen, but these are exceedingly rare.
What are some of the symptoms of acromegaly?
There are two main categories of problems associated with acromegaly. One category is related to the tumor itself. The pituitary gland sits in a bony, confined cavity at the base of the skull. If there's a tumor of the pituitary gland that begins to grow, it tends to grow upwards and outwards, leading to disruption of the optic nerves, which can cause a loss of vision and problems with some of the cranial nerves that can lead to changes in the function of the face.
