The Role of Elevated Growth Hormone on the Increased Atherosclerosis in Patients With Acromegaly

Acromegaly is a rare endocrine disease resulting from a growth hormone (GH)-secreting pituitary adenoma; it has an estimated prevalence of around 60 per million and an annual incidence of 3 or 4 per million.1,2 Untreated acromegaly is associated with reduced life expectancy and long-term complications, including cardiometabolic pathology.3 Indeed, patients with acromegaly have an increased cardiovascular (CV) risk when compared with healthy populations, due to higher prevalence of insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemia, and hyper-tension4; however, it seems that these factors by themselves do not lead to a higher rate of CV events.5 Although epidemiolo-gical studies have reported that CV and cerebrovascular events are the main cause of death in patients with acromegaly,6-8 data on a potential increased prevalence of coronary heart disease (CHD) in these subjects are conflicting.9-12 Therefore, despit