Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: There is a long delay between the onset of symptoms and correct diagnosis of acromegaly. This study aimed to explore the potential of hand size as a screening tool of acromegaly. Here we present first results of a new screening project.

Method: We measured scan-copies of acromegalics (n=27, 9 women, age 18–84 years) and controls (n=111, 71 women, age 19–81 years) and analyzed surface areas of palm and thenar and maximal diameters of hand, thenar and proximal fingers.

Results: The difference of palm surface areas and diameters between acromegalics and controls is highly significant. Most in men, where palm surface areas of acromegalics to controls (192.22±15.24 vs 167.93±16.37 cm, P<0.001) and hand diameters (9.61±0.50 vs 8.87±0.46 cm, P<0.001) reached same significance. In women, palm surface areas (145.02±10.87 vs 133.90±11.30 cm, P<0.01) and hand diameters (8.24±0.32 vs 7.84±0.39 cm, P<0.005) of acromegalics were significant higher compared to controls.

In controls, the palm surface area at the 95th percentile (representing a specifity of 95%) was 192.07 and 152.90 cm² and the hand diameter at the 95th percentile was 9.58 and 8.39 cm in men and women respectively. The corresponding sensitivities to these cutoff levels were 55 and 33% for palm surface area and 55 and 44% for hand diameter in men and women respectively.

Conclusions: Measures of hand size may be a helpful and simple tool in the early screening for acromegaly. This approach allows defining clinical cutoff levels with a high specifity, however at a cost of low sensitivity. Further measurements with a higher sample size will follow for more robust results.

Declaration of funding: This study was partially supported by Pfizer.