Endocrine Abstracts

Aim: To study character of neuroendocrine disorders in children and adolescents with the Turkish saddle volume formations.

Materials and methods: we examined 35 children and adolescents, 17 girls and 18 boys among them with the Turkish saddle volume formations at the neuroendocrine department of the Center for the scientific and clinical study of endocrinology. All examinees underwent general clinical examination as well as biochemical and hormonal investigations (levels of pituitary hormones), Turkish saddle CT and MRI and hand roentgenogram, clinical ultrasound of the thyroid and sex organs, anthropometric examination, having their sexual development stage by Tanner assessed.

Results: By character of pathology the examinees were divided into five groups. The 1st group included 23 patients (63%) with nonfunctional pituitary adenomas, the 2nd group including five patients (14.3%) with Cushing disease comprising the 3rd group, two patients (77.1%) with prolactinomas comprising the 4th group and one patient (2.9%) having germinoma and pinealoma combination was in the 5th group. By character of tumor (by Kadashev B.A., 2007) the patients were distributed as follows: 1st group of endosellar localization comprised i) 27 patients (77.1%) with microadenomas (under 1 cm) and ii) one patient (2.9%) with macroadenoma, 2nd group of endoextrasellar localization comprising (a) five patients (14.3%) with tumors of suprasellar growth and two patients (5.7%) with tumors of supra-parasellar growth.

Examination of 35 patients allowed diagnosing a number of neuroendocrine disorders, such as, growth and puberty delay (n=9, 25.7%), physical development delay (n=6, 17.1%), dysplastic obesity (n=5, 14.3%), precocious puberty development (n=3, 8.6%), diabetes insipidus (n=3, 8.6%), gigantism (n=2, 5.7%) and secondary hypocorticoidism (n=1, 2.9%). Delay of puberty and growth more often was founded in patients with nonfunctional pituitary tumours, cranyopharingiomas and prolactinomas – 15 cases from 35 patients (42, 8%); but precocious puberty – only in patients with Cushing disease – three patients from 5 (60%).

Conclusions: i) Growth and puberty disorders are the most frequent Turkish saddle volume formations with growth and puberty retardation predominating (25.7%), ii) the Turkish saddle tumors in children and adolescents result in hypo- and panhypopituitarism (n=19, 54.2%).

Declaration of interest: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest that could be perceived as prejudicing the impartiality of the research project.

Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sector.