Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Patients with hypopituitarism often report poor quality of life (QoL) despite adequate hormonal replacement therapy. Oxytocin, a peptide hormone produced in the hypothalamus and released by the posterior pituitary, has been known for its role in social and emotional behaviour. Our aim was to investigate the relationship between oxytocin and QoL domains in patients with hypopituitarism under optimal hormonal replacement therapy.

Methods: Patients with a previous diagnosis of hypopituitarism with optimal replacement therapy and subjects with no evidence of a pituitary disease attending the out-patient clinic were recruited between 2016 and 2018. The research protocol included fasting blood tests to assess oxytocin levels. The QoL was evaluated using valid instruments such as the Short Form Survey (SF-36), Questions on Life Satisfaction-Hypopituitarism (QLS-H), UCLA Loneliness Scale, and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale.

Results: Data were available for 30 patients [19 females, 11 males, ages 20-80 [mean 56 yrs)] and 16 controls [9 females, 7 males, ages 30-73 (mean 54 yrs). Comparison of baseline characteristics of participants between the groups showed no differences for age, gender, BMI or oxytocin levels (10.65 vs. 11.44, P=.58). Patients had significantly lower (worse) scores for the domain Pain (P=.024) measured by the SF-36, and Sexual Arousal measured by QLS-H (P<0.01) compared to patients. Across both groups we found a moderate correlation between oxytocin and Initiative/Drive domain, measured by QLS-H (.345, P=.03).

Conclusion: In our cohort of subjects we observed a linear relationship between serum oxytocin and initiative/drive domain measured by QLS-H. Our study was statistically underpowered to detect a difference for serum oxytocin, however, a trend towards a lower serum oxytocin was observed in patients compared to controls.