Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Acromegaly is a chronic disease associated with impairment of quality of life (QoL) and psychological status. The aim of the present study was to assess QoL and mood disturbance in patients with acromegaly.

Description of methods/design: It was a comparative, cross-sectional study conducted in the department of Endocrinology at a tertiary medical centre of northern Greece in 2011. AcroQoL questionnaire was used to assess QoL in acromegalics and the short-form of POMS to assess psychological distress in acromegalics compared with a group of patients with other chronic disease and healthy subjects.

Results: Cronbach’s alpha analysis showed high reliability of the total AcroQoL (0.887) and POMS score (0.877). Forty patients with acromegaly (15 males, mean age 57.9±12.4 years) were included. Forty patients with chronic disease and 80 healthy subjects, all age- and sex-matched were also included.

Acromegalics showed a mean AqroQoL score of 83.4±17.6 (range 34–108). Males had better QoL than females (P=0.034). Moreover, women suffered from more anxiety (P=0.043), depression (P=0.003), fatigue (P=0.001) and confusion (P=0.007). No association between AcroQoL and age, hypopituitarism, size of adenoma, disease remission, IGF1, basal or nadir GH levels was observed. AcroQoL scores were negatively associated with POMS subscales, including tension, depression, anger, fatigue, confusion and distress.

Regarding POMS, better scores were noticed in patients with microadenoma (P=0.019) and in those who had not undergone radiotherapy (P=0.035). Compared with healthy controls, acromegalics suffered more from depression (P=0.027) and hostility (P=0.044), associations which remained significant after adjustment for age and sex. However, compared with chronic-disease controls there were no significant differences regarding POMS scale and subscales in acromegalics.

Conclusions: Acromegaly has a negative impact on psychological distress comparable to other chronic diseases, especially in those with macroadenomas and those having undergone radiotherapy. QoL is affected more in females.

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.