Somatostatin analogs: does pharmacology impact antitumor efficacy?

•Novel multireceptor somatostatin analogs may putatively present higher antitumor activities.•Biased agonism indicates that different somatostatin analogs cannot be considered as simple mimics of the native somatostatins.•Pharmacologic differences in somatostatin analogs need to be taken into account for optimal use of the somatostatin analogs in the clinic.