ECE2015 Eposter Presentations Pituitary: clinical (121 abstracts)
1Zagreb University School of Medicine, Zagreb, Croatia; 2University Hospital Center Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia.
Accurate assessment of the hypothalamicpituitaryadrenal (HPA) axis is important for the appropriate management of patients with pituitary tumours after transsphenoidal surgery. The aim of our study was to evaluate the clinical relevance of the early postoperative basal cortisol level in assessing postoperative HPA axis function. We performed a retrospective analysis of 68 patients (male:female=36:32, age 59.5 years, range 2177) treated by transsphenoidal surgery between September 2011 and October 2014 at our centre of neuroendocrinology (44 nonfunctioning pituitary adenoma, 15 somatotrophinomas, five symptomatic Rathkes cleft cysts bigger than 15 mm, three craniopharyngeomas, and one macroprolactinoma resistant to medical therapy). Patients with Cushings disease were excluded as well as patients with preoperative HPA insufficiency. Early postoperative basal cortisol levels (measured on the second postoperative day) and a Synacthen stimulation test (performed 1012 weeks after the operation with a peak cortisol level of >550 nmol/l considered as normal response) were analyzed to assess HPA axis function during follow-up. We found that basal cortisol level of ≥249.5 nmol/l measured on the second day after the operation is a sensitive and accurate predictor of normal postoperative HPA axis function, with a sensitivity of 87.8%, and a specificity of 52.6%. Our data suggest that early postoperative cortisol level of ≥249.5 nmol/l predicts distant, normal postoperative HPA axis function following transsphenoidal surgery.