MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) — Medford resident Betsy Whispell was on her annual wind-surfing vacation on the Oregon Coast last year when a friend she hadn't seen in a year noticed that her face, hands and feet had grown abnormally large.

"I was wearing a wetsuit on the deck. My hands, feet and face were the only parts sticking out," Whispell recalls. "She was reluctant to start the conversation, but something in her gut was telling her to speak up. She followed me when I left the deck and said, 'I think you should be screened for acromegaly. Do you want to know more?'"

Her friend, a research endocrinol...