Perico N, et al. - In patients with autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD), the most frequent genetically determined renal disease, with more severe renal insufficiency (chronic kidney disease [CKD] stage 3b to 4), researchers evaluated the impact of octreotide long-acting release (octreotide-LAR) on kidney growth at 1 year and glomerular filtration rate (GFR) decline at 3 years. To evaluate octreotide-LAR in adults with ADPKD with GFR 15–40 ml/min/1.73 m², an internally funded, parallel-group, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase III trial was performed. In 100 patients with later-stage (CKD stage 3b or 4) ADPKD, 3-year treatment with octreotide-LAR did not have a significant effect on GFR decline vs placebo. However, active treatment slowed the growth and progression of the kidney volume to the combined endpoint of serum creatinine or ESRD doubling and prevented the increase in urinary protein observed in placebo-randomized controls. Overall, the investigators concluded that octreotide-LAR was well tolerated and during the study, there was no patient requiring interruption of treatment or even transient dose down-titration