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Endocrine Abstracts (2015) 37 S20.2 | DOI: 10.1530/endoabs.37.S20.2

Clinal Sciences, Medical Faculty of Lund University, Lund, Sweden.


Survival rates of childhood cancer have improved markedly and today more than 80% of those diagnosed with a pediatric malignancy will become 5-year survivors. Nevertheless, survivors exposed to cranial radiotherapy (CRT) are at particularly high risk for long-term morbidity, such as endocrine insufficiencies, metabolic complications and cardiovascular morbidity. Deficiencies of one or more anterior pituitary hormones have been described following therapeutic CRT for primary brain tumours, nasopharyngeal tumours, and following prophylactic CRT for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Studies have consistently shown a strong correlation between the total radiation dose and the development of pituitary deficits. Further, age at treatment and also time since treatment has strong implications on pituitary hormone deficiencies.

There is evidence that the hypothalamus is more radiosensitive than the pituitary and is damaged by lower doses of CRT. With lower doses of CRT (<50 Gy), the primary site of radiation damage is the hypothalamus and this usually causes isolated GH deficiency (GHD). Higher doses (>50 Gy), as were used in nasopharyngeal carcinomas, may produce direct anterior pituitary damage, which contributes to multiple pituitary deficiencies. The large group of ALL-survivors treated with CRT in the 80-90-ties has now reached adulthood and these survivors were treated mainly with 24 Gy and the vast majority of these patients suffer from GHD. Further, after long-term follow up we have recorded insufficiencies in Prolactin and TSH and proportion of these patients were also ACTH deficient. The more CRT sensitive hypothalamus causes neuroendocrine dysfunction, which means that the choice of GH test is crucial for the diagnosis of GHD.

Disclosure: Swedish Childhood Cancer Foundation.

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