Pituitary volume in patients with panic disorder

Panic patients have many functional deficiencies in the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis. Previous studies have shown changed pituitary gland volume in some psychiatric disorders that have functional deficiencies in the HPA axis. However, to date no study has evaluated the pituitary gland v...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry 2011-01, Vol.35 (1), p.203-207
Main Authors: Kartalci, Sukru, Dogan, Metin, Unal, Suheyla, Ozcan, A. Cemal, Ozdemir, Serdal, Atmaca, Murad
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Agoraphobia
Agoraphobia - pathology
Analysis of Variance
Anxiety disorders. Neuroses
Biological and medical sciences
Female
HPA axis
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted - methods
Magnetic resonance imaging
Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods
Male
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
Neuropharmacology
Panic disorder
Pharmacology. Drug treatments
Pituitary Gland - pathology
Pituitary Gland - physiopathology
Pituitary gland volume
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Somatoform Disorders - pathology
Young Adult
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Summary:Panic patients have many functional deficiencies in the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis. Previous studies have shown changed pituitary gland volume in some psychiatric disorders that have functional deficiencies in the HPA axis. However, to date no study has evaluated the pituitary gland volume in patients with panic disorder (PD). We investigated the pituitary gland volume in patients with PD (n=27) and age- and sex-matched healthy controls (n=27), using 1.5-T magnetic resonance imaging in this study. Analysis showed that patients with PD had significantly smaller pituitary volume compared to healthy subjects. Patients with agoraphobia especially had a significantly smaller pituitary volume than patients without agoraphobia. There was a significant relationship between the pituitary volume and both the severity of symptoms and the illness duration in the patient group. The results show that patients with PD have reduced pituitary volume, which may reflect the functional abnormalities seen in this disorder. These findings may help us better understand the pathology of PD. ► Patients with panic disorder have smaller pituitary volume than healthy controls. ► Patients with longer illness duration have a smaller pituitary volume. ► The reduced pituitary volume is more pronounced in patients with agoraphobia.
ISSN:0278-5846
1878-4216
DOI:10.1016/j.pnpbp.2010.11.005