Growth hormone, prolactin, and sexuality

Improving Quality of Life in Patients with Pituitary Tumours

Evaluation of health-related quality of life (QoL) in people with pituitary tumours has received much attention over the last 10-15 years. Most of them show impaired QoL, but little is known about how to prevent impairment or how to improve QoL. Our aim is to review what is known about QoL in pituitary tumours patients and to highlight the areas worth improving, for the patient's well being. The article has four sections: acromegaly, Cushing's syndrome, prolactinomas and non-functioning adenomas. Control of comorbidities is usually an important factor to prevent QoL impairment; however, each disease has specific characteristics that should be properly addressed in order to obtain full patient recovery after successful therapy.

Acromegaly is associated with higher frequency of female sexual dysfunction: experience of a single center

The aim of the study was to assess female sexual dysfunction (FSD), quality of life and depression status in female patients with acromegaly. Fifty-seven sexually active female patients with acromegaly disease (21 controlled, 36 uncontrolled) monitored by Cerrahpasa Medical School, Endocrinology and Metabolism out-patient clinic and age and body mass index-matched 46 healthy female subjects were included in the study. Sexual functions and status of depression in both patient and control groups were evaluated by using the Female Sexual Function Index Form (FSFI) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), respectively. Quality of life was evaluated by using the Acromegaly Quality of Life (AcroQoL) Scale. Hormone levels were studied in the groups. The FSFI total score and desire, arousal, orgasm, and satisfaction domains in patients with acromegaly were significantly lower than in the healthy controls (p ≤ 0.0001). There was no difference between biochemically controlled and uncontrolled patients with acromegaly with respect to FSFI scores (p = 0.7). AcroQoL total score in female patients with controlled acromegaly and uncontrolled acromegaly were 46.33 ± 16.5% and 50.13 ± 18.21%, respectively (p = 0.53). The difference in BDI scores between controlled and uncontrolled acromegaly patients was not significant but they were significantly higher in the control group (p ≤ 0.0001). In the correlation analysis, a negative correlation was found between FSFI total and BDI score (r = -0.69, p< 0.001), age (r = -0.45, p< 0.001), and IGF-I (r = -0.28, p = 0.006). This study showed that sexual dysfunction and depression rates in female patients with acromegaly are higher than in healthy females.