Thanks for putting together some of this information. I think the data on survival time after cabergoline or pasireotide might be too early to get. There have been only a small handful of cats on pasireotide because of it's cost. You might want to contact the RVC diabetes remission clinic and see if they have that data. They've been very responsive to emails. I don't know anyplace else that has pasireotide data. FWIW, the trial for pasireotide was done with drug donated by the manufacturer, it was too expensive for RVC to do the trial otherwise.
The South American group might have more data on cabergoline survival - again, it's fairly new. They are a better source of information than the small RVC trial and had a lot more cats on it. Heck, we've had many more cats here on cabergoline that RVC did, and three cats went into remission, one at the same time as the RVC trial. Also keep in mind, the goal of the RVC cabergoline trial was to find a drug that lowers IGF-1. Cabergoline does not do that, so the trial "failed". However, there was reduced insulins dose and improved quality of life, both wins for caregivers.
Some corrections, relapse is NOT common with SRT. Neko was the first cat in North America to have repeat SRT. At the time, I asked a couple of well known SRT researchers, and they knew of a total of 2 others that had relapse, but not repeat SRT. This was many years after cats had started having SRT. Many of the cats that I've seen there that have had SRT, have also passed from other conditions (such as cancer), so mean survival is impacted by that too. You might want to also differentiate SRT from other types of radiotherapy. Similarly, brain damage is very uncommon with SRT, but more likely with conventional radiotherapy. The "life quality" issues you list with SRT, resolve after about a week on pred, if they occur. They are rare, and not something I saw. I think we've seen one cat here who experienced them. There are a small percent of SRT cats who go hypothyroid and need treatment for that after SRT. SRT is also not available everywhere, not sure if you can even get it in the UK.
Relapse is also a possibility with hypophysectomy. We had one cat here, Schmee, who relapsed. Cost of surgery in the US is also over $10K. There are 2-3 places in the US that perform this surgery with experienced surgeons, as well as RVC, a place in Australia and the Netherlands. I have also heard of one case of a cat who had the surgery in the US, they didn't get all the pituitary so the caregiver had to follow on with SRT. I'd strongly recommend only getting the surgery by an experienced surgeon. At RVC the death rates at surgery have come down with time.
