Feline diabetes mellitus remission w/cabergoline treatment

Great find Larry, thanks for posting. Of course, we have Marvin (2017), Gizmo, and Tiffany (both 2018) that went OTJ on cabergoline too and before the cats on this study. But it's great to see a paper describing how they got there, and how long. Interesting to note all on a every other day treatment. And that one cat needed the treatment tapered down even more after being OTJ.

Interesting quotes:
It is currently unclear why some cats do respond to cabergoline and other cats do not. Hypotheses include the existence of various subpopulations of somatotrophinomas with varied dopamine receptor expression and agonist affinity, regional variants of hypersomatotropism or cat breeds, different dosing regimens and different commercial preparations of cabergoline used in the two studies
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and
The mechanism by which cabergoline controls DM is not yet understood. Considering that all cats achieved diabetic remission without seemingly reducing serum IGF-1 concentrations is interesting. Nevertheless, this phenomenon has also been reported with radiotherapy. 10 A partial explanation could be that IGF-1 concentrations do not correlate totally with GH concentrations; a reduction in GH could therefore occur without it showing up alongside reductions in IGF-1, especially if the measured concentration of IGF-1 was above the measurable range of the assay (in this case >1500 ng/ml).
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This is a great find - hopefully it'll help people whose vets have been reluctant to prescribe it. Again from the paper:
Cabergoline is relatively inexpensive and easy to administer, and should therefore be considered as a possible alternative treatment option, alongside other medical options such as pasireotide, radiotherapy or the definitive treatment option – hypophysectomy. As IGF-1 concentarations do not normalize, cats receiving treatment are likely still under threat from the sequelae of GH excess.
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As they also noted, radiotherapy does not normalize IGF-1 either.
 
Great find! We're day 6 OTJ after starting cab July 1, quite a ride down. Interesting about reducing it even further for the one cat, I had wondered about "how low is too low" while on cab but off insulin.
 
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