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Endocrine Abstracts (2016) 41 EP870 | DOI: 10.1530/endoabs.41.EP870

Centre Hospitalier Universitaire, Dijon, France.


Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is commonly associated with obesity, metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. NAFLD is also seen in patients with endocrinopathies. However, the relationship between endocrinopathies and the development of NAFLD is not well known. Both GH and IGF1 are believed to be involved in the regulation of hepatic lipid metabolism.

Objective: In this study, we set out to determine whether liver fat content (LFC) was associated with IGF1 levels and with GH deficiency in people with pituitary diseases (PD).

Design, settings, and participants: Eighty eight patients with pituitary diseases and 74 healthy controls were included in this study. LFC was measured using MRI. Hepatic steatosis was defined as LFC >5.5%.

Results: Patients with PD were older (P=0.001), had a higher BMI (P=0.0005) and higher ALAT level (P=0.0002) than healthy controls. LFC was significantly higher in people with PD than in controls (6.5% vs 3.2%; P<0.001). LFC was negatively associated with the IGF1 level. Fourteen patients with PD had GH deficiency. LFC was higher in PD patients with GH deficiency than in those without. The prevalence of steatosis (LFC >5.5%) was higher in PD patients than in controls (36.3% vs 14.8%; P=0.002 respectively). The prevalence of steatosis was higher in PD patients with GH deficiency than in those without (12/14 (85.7%) vs 20/74 (27.0%); P<0.001). In multivariate analysis, which included patients and controls, the predictive variables for steatosis were age, BMI and IGF1 levels, whereas the presence of pituitary diseases and gender were not associated with steatosis.

Conclusions: Our data showed that LFC was strongly associated with IGF1 levels. These results suggest that steatosis associated with PD is probably a consequence of GH deficiency in patients with pituitary diseases. An evaluation of the interest of GH treatment in GH-deficient PD patients with NASH should be evaluated.

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