Pitfalls of diagnosing pituitary hypoplasia in the patients with short stature

• Published in: Endocrine 2024-10, Vol.86 (1), p.349-357
• Main Authors: Kiremitci Yilmaz, Seniha, Yilmaz Ovali, Gülgün, Ozalp Kizilay, Deniz, Tarhan, Serdar, Ersoy, Betul
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Age; Age Determination by Skeleton; Body Height; Child; Diabetes; Dwarfism, Pituitary - diagnosis; Endocrinology; Female; Growth hormones; Human Growth Hormone - blood; Human Growth Hormone - deficiency; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Hypopituitarism - diagnosis; Hypoplasia; Insulin-like growth factor I; Insulin-Like Growth Factor I - analysis; Insulin-Like Growth Factor I - metabolism; Insulin-like growth factor-binding protein 3; Insulin-like growth factors; Internal Medicine; Male; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; multidisciplinary; Original; Original Article; Pituitary; Pituitary Gland - abnormalities; Pituitary Gland - diagnostic imaging; Prognosis; Science; Young Adult
• ISSN: 1559-0100; 1355-008X; 1559-0100
• DOI: 10.1007/s12020-024-03951-9

Purpose Height age (HA) and bone age (BA) delay is well known in the patients with short stature. Therefore assessing pituitary hypoplasia based on chronological age (CA) might cause overdiagnosis of pituitary hypoplasia. We aimed to investigate the diagnostic and prognostic value of the PH and PV based on CA, HA, or BA in the patients with GHD. Methods Fifty-seven patients with severe and 40 patients with partial GHD and 39 patients with ISS assigned to the study. For defining the most accurate diagnosis of pituitary hypoplasia, PH and PV were evaluated based on CA, BA and HA. The relationship of each method with clinical features was examined. Results The mean PV was significantly larger in patients with ISS compared to the GH-deficient patients. PV was more correlated with clinical features including height SDS, stimulated GH concentration, IGF-1 and IGFBP-3 SDS, height velocity before and after rGH therapy. We found BA-based PV could discriminate GHD from ISS (Sensitivity: 17%, specificity: 98%, positive predictive value: 94%, negative predictive value: 39%), compared to the other methods based on PH or PV respect to CA and HA. 3% of patients with ISS, 17% of patients with GHD had pituitary hypoplasia based on PV-BA. Conclusion PV based on BA, has the most accurate diagnostic value for defining pituitary hypoplasia. But it should be kept in mind that there might be still misdiagnosed patients by this method. PV is also a significant predictor for the rGH response.