Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Acromegaly is a neuroendocrine disease that occurs with slowly progressive symptoms, which leads to delayed diagnosis and the development of complications. Arthropathy is one of such complications, which is accompanied by severe pain and significantly worsens the quality of life. The main attention of researchers is devoted to the pathology of the hip, knee and hand joints. At the same time, the study of the shoulder, acromioclavicular, costovertebral joints in acromegaly has not been carried out in detail.

Purpose: The objective of the study is to study damage of the shoulder, acromioclavicular, costovertebral joints in patients with acromegaly.

Materials and methods: The study included 31 patients (15 men and 16 women) with active acromegaly and 25 patients (12 men and 13 women) of the control group without acromegaly. Both groups had no trauma or rheumathoid disoders. The median age was 43.74 in patients with acromegaly and 46.64 in the control group. The duration of acromegaly at retrospective assessment ranged from 1 to 32 years, activity was confirmed by the results of the level of IGF-1 (median 577.98 ng/ml).

Results: In patients with acromegaly, arthrosis of the costovertebral joints was diagnosed 87% and did not depend on age and gender, in contrast to the control group, where the pathology of the costovertebral joints was detected in 64% of patients and there is a clear correlation with age. Arthrosis of the acromioclavicular joints was detected in patients with acromegaly in 32% of cases; these changes did not have a clear pattern with age characteristics and gender. In the control group, 16% over 55 years of age had pathology of the acromioclavicular joints, regardless of gender, and 8% of men under 55 years of age. In 54.8% of patients with acromegaly, arthrosis of the shoulder joints was found equally in women and men, and the defeat of these joints in the control group was registered only in 20% exclusively in males.

Conclusions: In patients with acromegaly, arthrosis of the acromioclavicular, costovertebral and shoulder joints is observed more often than in patients without this neuroendocrine pathology and does not depend on gender. The high frequency of joint damage in patients with acromegaly requires special attention to diagnosis, as it is an important component of quality of life.