Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Pituitary apoplexy is a life-threatening entity developing as a result of ischemia or hemorrhage into pre-existing pituitary tumor. Clinical course is characteristic and commonly consists of severe headache accompanied by nausea, emesis, impaired consciousness, visual field impairment as well as eyeballs movement restriction. Symptoms are typically accompanied by secondary adrenal insufficiency. Corticosteroids are drugs of choice regarding coexisting adrenal ins...

Background: The treatment of choice in prolactinomas are dopamine agonists, with surgery reserved for cases refractory to or poorly tolerant of pharmacotherapy. Little is known on the associations between clinical, neuroradiological and pathological features influencing the efficacy of transphenoidal surgery.The Aim: To evaluate clinical, neuroradiological and neuropathological aspects of surgically treated prolactinomas in women, with a particular empha...

Diagnosis and treatment of Cushing’s disease is one of the greatest challenges of modern endocrinology. This is related to the fact that pituitary corticotropinomas are small tumours that are difficult to visualize in magnetic resonance imaging (MR). In about 40% of patients with Cushing’s disease, MR scans of the pituitary gland do not reveal any changes. The method that allows to localize the source of adrenocorticotropin (ACTH) secretion is bilateral inferior pe...

Background: The diagnostic process to unveil the underlying cause of endogenous Cushing’s syndrome (CS) is often challenging. Sometimes, atypical manifestation of the disease or only periodic hypercortisolaemia with spontaneous resolutions are observed and make the diagnosis even more difficult. Although it is common in primary pigmented nodular adrenocortical disease (PPNAD), pituitary corticotroph adenoma can manifest itself as cyclic Cushing’s syndrome as well.</p...