How best to monitor the specific side effects of medical treatments of Cushing's disease.

The first-line treatment of Cushing's disease is transsphenoidal surgery. Medical treatment of Cushing's disease can be considered in several situations: as a presurgical treatment in patients with severe comorbidities, when surgery fails, or while waiting for the maximal efficacy of radiation techniques. Several modalities of medical treatment are possible, from adrenal-targeting drugs (steroidogenesis inhibitors) to pituitary-targeting drugs (somatostatin receptor ligand pasireotide or the dopamine agonist cabergoline), or even drugs that antagonize the glucocorticoid receptor (mifepristone). Given the morbidities associated with hypercortisolism, and the fact that medical treatment can be delivered on a long-term basis, it is important to obtain eucortisolism and to monitor the drug effectively. The efficacy of these drugs will not be detailed in this review, nor their roles in the therapeutic algorithm of Cushing's disease. This review will rather focus specifically on adverse events associated with these drugs (ketoconazole, levoketoconazole, metyrapone, osilodrostat, pasireotide, cabergoline and mifepristone), and the way in which to monitor and treat them, based on retrospective studies and the most recently published prospective studies.

Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.