Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: Analysis of referrals from Primary Care to the Endocrinology Department for analytical findings of elevated prolactin levels and their subsequent management after initial assessment.

Material and methods: Retrospective descriptive study of 118 patients who were referred to the Endocrinology and Nutrition department of the Dos Hermanas Peripheral Specialities Centre between October 2020 and December 2022. Patients already diagnosed with hyperprolactinaemia who were lost to follow-up and those who did not carry out the requested tests and could not be re-evaluated after the first consultation were excluded from the analysis.

Results: Most referrals were women (95.8%) with a peak age between 18 and 25 years (40.7%). The most frequent reason for requesting the initial blood test by their primary care physician was oligomenorrhoea (35.6%), followed by those with no stated or confirmed reason (22%). The prolactin levels for which they were referred were less than 100 pg/ml (mean value 65.3±40.4 pg/ml) in 92.3%, with the smallest proportion (37%) being performed correctly (in follicular phase, at rest and with extraction 30 minutes after venipuncture). Of this total, 76% were normalised following our extraction recommendations. These non-pathological results were reported telematically in 47.9% of cases.

Conclusions: Most referrals for hyperprolactinaemia could be avoided with a correct blood collection, given the high rate of normalisation in this way, without requiring referral to a specialist clinic. For this reason, and once referred, the telematic review of results is an effective option for informing patients, avoiding the need to be present in person and the associated waiting time.