Silent somatotroph tumors (sSTs) are pituitary neuroendocrine tumors (PitNETs) which do not give rise to the clinical syndrome of acromegaly. Differently to their functioning counterparts, the adjuvant medical treatment with somatostatin analogues (SSAs) or dopamine receptors agonists (DAs) has been scarcely addressed in these tumors. As preliminary results of an ongoing research on silencing mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of sSTs, we have characterized by qRT-PCR the expression of SSTRs and DRDs in a large series of 18 silent and 68 functioning STs. Although the expression of SSTR2 and SSTR5 was lower in sSTs than in functioning ones, we found a negative correlation between SSTR2 and the tumor size of the sSTs. Additionally, levels of expression of DRD2 were similar between the two subtypes suggesting a possible basis for the treatment of these tumors with SSAs and DAs.

中文翻译：

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生长抑素受体和多巴胺受体谱对治疗沉默的营养生长型肿瘤有用吗？

沉默的体养型肿瘤（sSTs）是垂体神经内分泌肿瘤（PitNETs），不会引起肢端肥大症的临床综合征。与功能正常的对应物不同，在这些肿瘤中几乎没有解决用生长抑素类似物（SSA）或多巴胺受体激动剂（DAs）进行辅助治疗的问题。作为正在进行的有关sST发病机理的沉默机制研究的初步结果，我们通过qRT-PCR表征了18个静默和68个功能正常的ST中SSTR和DRD的表达。尽管SSTs中SSTR2和SSTR5的表达低于功能性表达的，但我们发现SSTR2和sSTs的肿瘤大小之间存在负相关。另外，