Searchable abstracts of presentations at key conferences in endocrinology
Endocrine Abstracts (2016) 41 EP17 | DOI: 10.1530/endoabs.41.EP17

1Departments, Hospital Sant Pau, Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Raras (CIBER-ER, Unidad 747), IIB-Sant Pau, ISCIII and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain; 2Escola Universitària d’Infermeria, Hospital de Sant Pau. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Barcelona, Spain; 3INNDACYT, Avda. Europa, 20, Planta Baja Puerta D 08907, Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain.


Introduction: Cushing’s syndrome (CS) has been related to higher psychopathology. Psychopathology can be related to poor memory performance, and low quality of life. The aim of this study is to establish the relationship between the three parameters and with subjective symptom perception in CS.

Methods/design: Thirty six patients in remission of CS and 36 matched controls for age, sex and education years were included in the study. They completed SCL-90R, CushingQoL (only patients), Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure, a symptom list ranging from 0 to 10 and performed blood tests.

Results: Patients showed more psychopathology in all the SCL-90R variables (somatization, obsessive-compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, psychoticism, global severity index, positive symptom distress index and positive symptom total) (P<0.01) and poorer long-term memory performance (P=0.024), compared to controls. They also reported more symptoms than controls (P<0.001). Psychopathology did not correlate with memory performance, quality of life or symptoms. The hostility subscale was positively correlated to blood cortisol levels (r=0.459, P=0.005).

Conclusion: CS patients after endocrine control show more psychopathology and memory impairment than healthy controls. These data show that despite normalization of hypercortisolism psychological morbidity persists.

Article tools

My recent searches

No recent searches.