Systemic comorbidities of acromegaly in real-life experience: which difference among young and elderly patients?

Introduction Acromegaly is a rare but potentially life-threatening disease, if not promptly managed, for the systemic complications due to the GH/IGF-I hypersecretion. According to the increased population life span, the number of older acromegaly patients is growing. We aim to investigate clinical features of elderly acromegaly (elderly-ACRO) and to identify the risk factors for the occurrence of comorbidities in elderly-ACRO. Materials and methods A retrospective and multi-center study was performed on acromegaly patients. Acromegaly comorbidities were compared among elderly-ACRO (>65 years), young acromegaly patients (young-ACRO if <= 65 years) and a control group of age and gender-matched subjects. Result Fifty of the 189 enrolled patients were elderly-ACRO (26.5%). Cardiovascular, metabolic, neurological/psychiatric and joint/articular disorders, nodular thyroid disease, sleep apnoea syndrome and skeletal fragility occurred more frequently in elderly-ACRO as compared to controls. Cardiovascular and metabolic disorders, nodular thyroid disease occurred significantly more frequently in elderly-ACRO as compared to young-ACRO and controls. On the other hand, neurological/psychiatric, joint/articular disorders and bone fragility occur with a similar frequency among elderly and young-ACRO. We found that elderly-ACRO had an increased risk for the occurrence of systemic arterial hypertension (p < 0.001, OR: 5.4 95%IC:2.6-10.9), left ventricular hypertrophy (p = 0.01, OR: 3 95%IC: 1.5-5.8) and metabolic disorders (p = 0.006, OR: 4.1 95%IC: 2-8.3). Conclusion Our results may suggest that some acromegaly comorbidities may be predominantly due to acromegaly "per-se" rather than to aging. On the contrary, cardiovascular and metabolic disorders seem to be due to aging as well.