Insulinoma is a rare disease which can cause recurrent hyperinsulinemic hypoglycemia, subsequent hyperphagia as well as weight gain. As only 50% \~ 60% of pharmacological therapy (diazoxide, somatostatin, etc) is effective to elevate blood glucose, the nutritional interventions play a role as an important supportive treatment to maintain glycemic stablization and control weight gain before the curative surgery. As the essential management for patients with glycogen storage disease (GSD), the extended release cornstarch has been proved superior to prevent hypoglycemia since 1980s. Its application has elevated GSD patients' quality of life and prolonged their survival. In view of its charicteristic of chronic release in gastrointestinal tract, we will for the first time try to utilize the raw corn starch (RCS) on patients with suspected insulinoma and evaluate its efficacy of improving hypoglycemia in such patients.
This will be a prospective single-arm before-and-after clinical trial. Nutritional intervention with supplementation of RCS will be initiated in 20 patients with suspected insulinoma to improve their hypoglycemia before the surgery. Duration of nutritional intervention, fasting blood glucose, lipid profile, weight change, BMI and other metabolic indices will be recorded and compared before and after the intervention.
