Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Hydrocortisone replacement for primary adrenal insufficiency (PAI) is targeted to mimic circadian endogenous cortisol secretion. Nevertheless, patients on stable treatment report impairments in quality of life. The brain is a major target area for cortisol considering it high density of glucocorticoid receptors and previous studies in patients treated for Cushing’s disease (CD) suggest that hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis dysregulation is related to cognit...

Background: Early diagnosis of Cushing’s syndrome and initiation of effective treatment are essential to limit long-term morbidity and early mortality. However, diagnosis is often delayed due to the non-specificity of symptoms, or because symptoms are not recognised by physicians, leading to more complex treatment needs and a worsening of patient quality of life. A survey was conducted to better understand the patient experience of Cushing’s syndrome and the true b...

Background: Patients with pituitary disease demonstrated Quality of Life (QoL) impairment. From other chronic diseases it is known that partners of patients also report impairments in QoL. Furthermore, it is observed that well-being of patients is associated with the well-being of their partners. To date, no data are available on the well-being of partners of patients with pituitary disease. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to explore well-being of partners of patie...

Background: An increasing number of studies assess quality of life (QoL) in patients with pituitary diseases. At present, available disease-specific QoL questionnaires do not completely cover the patient perspective of QoL. Furthermore, there are no disease-specific questionnaires available which inventories patient’s needs for help for impairments in QoL.Objective: To develop and validate a disease-specific QoL questionnaire for patients with pitui...

Objective: Pituitary diseases cause a wide range of local and systemic symptoms and severely affect patients’ health-related quality of life (HRQoL), which can be monitored using both disease-specific and generic questionnaires. The most frequently used generic HRQoL questionnaire is the Short Form-36 (SF-36), generating a mental (MCS) and physical component score (PCS). The shorter 12-item version (SF-12) can improve efficiency of patient monitoring and outcome measurem...

PurposeAs the majority of patients with pituitary disease are of working age, their health situation may negatively impact their functioning at work. However, work participation can also be influenced by contextual (environmental and personal) factors. The aim of this qualitative study was to investigate the perspective of patients with pituitary disease on their functioning at work and on contextual factors contributing to work-related problems, using t...

Background: Patients with long-term remission of Cushing’s disease (CD) demonstrate residual psychological complaints. At present, it is not known how previous exposure to hypercortisolism affects psychological functioning in the long-term. In foregoing Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) studies, abnormalities of brain structure and resting-state connectivity were demonstrated in patients with long-term remission of CD. However, no data are available on functional alteratio...