Rapid assessment of surgical success in patients with acromegaly: GH, IGF-I, or both?

Neurosurgeons and endocrinologists are happy to be able to tell patients with Cushing’s disease, as early as the second or third postoperative day, that surgery on their corticotropic pituitary adenoma has been successful and that they are almost certainly in remission. This confidence is based on cortisol measurement during the immediate postoperative period: corticotrophin deficiency strongly predicts total removal of the ACTH-secreting microadenoma and, thus, disease remission (1).