Endocrine Abstracts

Active acromegaly is associated with considerable morbidity and increased mortality. Multimodality treatment of acromegaly is nowadays effective in the vast majority of patients and consequently survival of acromegaly has improved/normalized.Nevertheless, significant chronic physical and psychological complaints persist in the long-term follow-up after cure of acromegaly and quality of life in patients has reported to remain significantly reduced despite...

Introduction: Dopamine agonists (DA) are first-line treatment for prolactinomas and effectively control hyperprolactinemia in most patients. However, side effects may negatively impact health-related quality of life; and post-withdrawal remission rates are low, resulting in prolonged DA treatment.Methods: Dutch multicenter prospective observational cohort study mapping standard care for 316 prolactinoma patients. Baseline clinical characteristics and tre...

Introduction: Increased insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) levels in patients with acromegaly are associated with clinical and radiological osteoarthritis (OA). We aimed to elucidate whether serum IGF-1 levels differ in patients with primary OA as compared to healthy controls and whether genetic variants known to affect serum IGF-1 levels are also associated with primary OA.Methods: Patients from the GARP study with familial generalized OA (n=...

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...

Introduction: Hypothalamic dysfunction (HD) during childhood can occur due to (treatment of) a suprasellar brain tumor. HD may not only result in pituitary dysfunction, but also in severe hyperphagia, decreased energy expenditure, diabetes insipidus with adipsia, disturbance of circadian rhythm, temperature dysregulation and behavioral problems. Currently there is no effective treatment for HD while HD has major impact on quality of life. To provide optimal care and to design ...

Background: Sex differences in clinical picture of ACTH-dependent Cushing’s syndrome are controversial, except for the known higher prevalence in females. We compared a broad range of potential differences to enable a more accurate understanding of the clinical picture of sex-specific ACTH-dependent Cushing’s syndrome.Design: Cohort study.Methods: We included consecutive patients with ACTH-dependent Cushing’s syndrom...

Background: Adrenal crisis, the most feared complication of adrenal insufficiency, is a potentially life-threatening situation of acute glucocorticoid deficiency. After successful surgery, many patients with Cushing’s syndrome develop (transient) adrenal insufficiency. The incidence of adrenal crisis in patients treated for hypercortisolism is unknown.Methods: Cohort study including consecutive patients with Cushing’s syndrome with adrenal insu...

Introduction: Although biochemical markers of acromegaly disease activity, including GH and IGF1, may fluctuate from day-to-day, biochemical treatment response in clinical trials is generally monitored using single-point analyses. Accordingly, longitudinal evaluations may assess patient status more accurately. In a phase 3 trial, oral octreotide capsules (OOC) demonstrated sustained composite endpoint GH and IGF1 response for ≤13 months in 151 patients with acromegaly pr...

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...