Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Prolactinoma is the most common functioning pituitary adenoma. Subclinical atherosclerosis and cardiovascular risk in patients with prolactinoma were reported but have not been clarified yet.

Aim: Our study aims to compare prolactinoma patients with a control group in terms of lipid profile, body fat distribution, and subclinical atherosclerosis markers.

Methods: This single-center, prospective study included 32 patients diagnosed with prolactinoma and 32 control groups with similar clinical features. Patients newly diagnosed with prolactinoma were evaluated before and 6 months after treatment. Patient and control groups were compared according to their serum omentin-1 levels, lipid profile, body fat ratio, epicardial adipose tissue thickness (EATT), and carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT).

Results: 25 of the patients were diagnosed with microprolactinoma, 7 with macroprolactinoma, 25 were female and 7 were male. Similar omentin-1 levels were found in prolactinoma and control groups (P=0.368). A total of 20 patients, 15 female, and 5 male, were re-evaluated after the treatment. The mean omentin-1 levels of 20 patients evaluated six months after the treatment was not significantly different from the pre-treatment level (P=0.526). The median EATT in the patient group which was higher than in the control group (P=0.021) significantly regressed and was found similar to the control group six months after treatment (P=0.036, P=0.248; respectively). The median CIMT which was similar between patients and control groups (P=0.723), was significantly regressed (P=0.040) after treatment. In terms of median body fat rate, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein, high-density lipoprotein, and triglyceride levels were found to similar between patient and control groups (P=0.445, P=0.079, P=0.200, P=0.056, P=0.243; respectively). In the control group, prolactin levels were negatively correlated with EATT, CIMT, BMI, waist-hip ratio, and age (P=0.025, P=0.006, P=0.029, P<0.01, P=0.021; respectively).

Discussion: Increased EATT plays a role in the development of coronary and myocardial disease, as a result of inflammation and fibrosis. CIMT is commonly used in the follow-up of subclinical atherosclerosis. In our study, EATT was found significantly higher in untreated prolactinoma patients than in the control group while CIMT was found similar. After the treatment, EATT and CIMT values, which are two subclinical atherosclerosis markers, decreased significantly. Our results show that hyperprolactinemia is associated with subclinical atherosclerosis. More comprehensive studies are needed to evaluate cardiovascular risk in prolactinoma patients.