Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: of non-functioning pituitary macroadenomas are associated with hyposecretion of the pituitary gland. In addition surgical therapy can lead to a partial or complete hypopituitarism. Data suggest that substitution of growth hormone can improve quality of life and reduce associated symptoms. However in many cases substitution is not started within the first 6–12 months after surgery. Therefore we intended to investigate if patients benefit from an early growth hormone treatment after surgery compared to control.

Patients and methods: Data was collected prospectively from 21 adult patients who were diagnosed with insufficiency of growth hormone axis using insulin hypoglycaemia test. Patients were divided into treatment and control group and followed 52 weeks after pituitary surgery. On each consultation laboratory testing was performed and body composition obtained. Also quality of life was assessed by a standardised questionnaire concerning health and life satisfaction.

Results: Whereas the control group showed a significant decrease of IGF1-levels after surgery the IGF1-levels of the treatment group stayed within the normal range.

Bioelectrical impedance analysis showed a significant increase of impedance as well as lean body mass in the treatment group compared to control (P<0.05). There was a significant difference in health status in the treatment compared to control.

Triglycerides, cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol increased to a greater extent in the control than in the treatment group without reaching statistical significance. Mean increase in HDL-level was 2.1 mg/dl in the control compared to a decrease of 0.2 mg/dl in the treatment group. Lpa-levels were reduced by 4.1 mg/dl in the treatment and by 2.7 mg/dl in the control group. Finally we saw a trend towards better improvement in pituitary function if GH was substituted.

Conclusion: Early supplementation of GH leads to a significant improvement in quality of life and body composition after pituitary surgery. It is possible that pituitary function recovers better with early GH substitution.

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 work was supported, however funding details unavailable.