Endocrine Abstracts

Objectives: Our aim was to assess health-related quality of life in patients with Cushing’s disease (CD) and patients with non-functioning pituitary adenomas (NFPA).

Methods: We assessed patients with CD and with NFPA treated at our outpatient units. Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) was assessed with the SF-36, a widely used generic measure of health status and the CushingQoL, a newly developed disease generated questionnaire to evaluate HRQoL in patients with Cushing’s syndrome.

Results: Fifty patients with CD (82% female, mean age 46.4±11.6) and 60 patients with NFPA (35% female, 60.2±10.6 years) participated in the study. There was a higher prevalence of macroadenomas in NFPA versus CD (83.3 vs 20.0%). 98.0% of the CD patients had been operated, 27.7% irradiated and 10% received medical treatment. CD was biochemically controlled in 37 patients (74.0%).

According to the SF-36 questionnaire, self-perceived health was very good in 8 (16%), good in 22 (44%), fair in 13 (26%) and poor in 7 (14%) patients with CD, whereas in the NFPA group, self-perceived health was excellent in 1 (1.7%), very good in 9 (15%), good in 33 (55%), fair in 13 (21.7%) and poor in 3 (5%) patients respectively. There was no significant difference between the two groups.

With the CushingQoL questionnaire, mean (S.D.) global CushingQoL score was 21.12 (10.82). None of the CD patients obtained the highest or lowest possible score. The linear regression analysis using the global CushingQoL score as the dependent variable identified a significant correlation between age (P=0.044), biochemical remission of the disease (P=0.002) and HRQoL.

Conclusions: HRQoL is impaired in both patients with CD and patients with NFPA. Age as well as biochemical remission of the disease might play an important role in HRQoL.