Adrenal myelolipoma(s) as presenting manifestation of subclinical Cushing’s disease (eutopic ACTH-dependent Cushing’s syndrome)

Posted on August 16, 2017 by MaryO
  1. Partha Pratim Chakraborty1,
  2. Shinjan Patra1,
  3. Sugata Narayan Biswas1,
  4. Rana Bhattacharjee2

+Author Affiliations


  1. 1Department of Medicine, Midnapore Medical College and Hospital, Midnapore, West Bengal, India

  2. 2Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, IPGME&R/SSKM Hospital, Kolkata, West Bengal, India
  1. Correspondence to Dr Partha Pratim Chakraborty, docparthapc@yahoo.co.in
  • Accepted 5 August 2017
  • Published 16 August 2017

Summary

Primary adrenal myelolipomas, relatively rare benign tumours of the adrenal cortex are typically unilateral, hormonally inactive and asymptomatic, hence often diagnosed as ‘adrenal incidentaloma’. Bilateral adrenal myelolipomas, in particular, may be associated with underlying endocrinopathies associated with elevated circulating adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) concentration.

Subclinical cortisol hypersecretion, irrespective of its ACTH dependency, does not manifest typical clinical phenotype of hypercortisolemia, and thus termed subclinical Cushing’s syndrome.

In this article, hormonal evaluation in a middle-aged woman with diabetes, hypertension and incidentally discovered unilateral adrenal myelolipoma revealed underlying subclinical Cushing’s disease. Abdominal CT revealed another tiny focus in the contralateral adrenal gland, probably representing incipient myelolipoma.

From (you may buy the whole article at this link) http://casereports.bmj.com/content/2017/bcr-2017-221674.short?rss=1

Filed under: adrenal, Cushing's, pituitary | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

The burden of Cushing’s disease: clinical and health-related quality of life aspects

Posted on August 13, 2017 by MaryO


Thanks to Robin Ess for the easy to read chart!

Abstract

Objective Cushing’s disease (CD) is a rare endocrine disorder characterized by excess secretion of ACTH due to a pituitary adenoma. Current treatment options are limited and may pose additional risks. A literature review was conducted to assess the holistic burden of CD.

Design Studies published in English were evaluated to address questions regarding the epidemiology of CD, time to diagnosis, health-related quality of life (HRQoL), treatment outcomes, mortality, prevalence of comorbidities at diagnosis, and reversibility of comorbidities following the treatment.

Methods A two-stage literature search was performed in Medline, EMBASE, and Science Citation Index, using keywords related to the epidemiology, treatment, and outcomes of CD: i) articles published from 2000 to 2012 were identified and ii) an additional hand search (all years) was conducted on the basis of bibliography of identified articles.

Results At the time of diagnosis, 58–85% of patients have hypertension, 32–41% are obese, 20–47% have diabetes mellitus, 50–81% have major depression, 31–50% have osteoporosis, and 38–71% have dyslipidemia. Remission rates following transsphenoidal surgery (TSS) are high when performed by expert pituitary surgeons (rates of 65–90%), but the potential for relapse remains (rates of 5–36%). Although some complications can be partially reversed, time to reversal can take years. The HRQoL of patients with CD also remains severely compromised after remission.

Conclusions These findings highlight the significant burden associated with CD. As current treatment options may not fully reverse the burden of chronic hypercortisolism, there is a need for both improved diagnostic tools to reduce the time to diagnosis and effective therapy, particularly a targeted medical therapy.

Introduction

Cushing’s disease (CD) is a rare condition caused by a pituitary adenoma that secretes excess ACTH (1), which promotes excess cortisol production from the adrenal glands. Excess cortisol induces a clinical phenotype that harbors all components of the metabolic syndrome, such as central obesity, diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, and hypertension, as well as muscle weakness, hirsutism, increased bruisability, psychological dysfunction, and osteoporosis (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).

Patients with CD experience a significant clinical burden due to comorbidities, increased mortality, and impaired health-related quality of life (HRQoL) due to prolonged exposure to elevated cortisol levels (3, 5, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20). In particular, patients with CD often experience severe fatigue and weakness, physical changes, emotional instability, depression, and cognitive impairments, which have a profound impact on daily life (13, 21).

Although there have been several consensus statements published recently on the definition of remission, diagnosis, and the management of CD, the severity and diversity of the clinical scenario and associated morbidities continue to present a management challenge (1, 22, 23). Additionally, there is recent evidence of persistent deleterious effects after remission, most notably persistent elevated cardiovascular risk (3, 22). The main objective of the current literature review is to describe the current burden of the disease and to summarize data on specific aspects of this burden, which underscores the need for improved diagnostic and therapeutic approaches.

Materials and methods

Available literature were evaluated to address questions regarding the epidemiology of CD, time to diagnosis, mortality, prevalence of comorbidities at diagnosis, reversibility of comorbidities after treatment (in particular, after disease remission), outcomes and complications of current treatment options, and HRQoL associated with CD and interventions.

The literature search was performed in Medline, EMBASE, and Science Citation Index, using keywords related to the epidemiology, treatment, and outcomes of CD. It was conducted in two stages: i) articles published between 2000 and 2012 were identified through a PubMed search using the following keywords: CD, incidence, prevalence, mortality, treatment, remission, cure, excess cortisol, outcomes, cost, QoL, morbidities, transsphenoidal surgery (TSS), adrenalectomy, radiotherapy, steroidogenesis inhibitors, ketoconazole, mitotane, aminoglutethimide, etomidate, metyrapone, pasireotide, and cortisol receptor antagonists; and ii) an additional hand search was conducted on the basis of the bibliographies of identified articles. All studies that provided data (regardless of publication year) related to these research questions were retained.

Definitions

Different criteria for defining the remission of hypercortisolism have been proposed, ranging from the occurrence of definitive or transient postoperative hypocortisolemia to the adequate suppression of cortisol after dexamethasone administration. According to a recent consensus statement (23), persistent postoperative morning serum cortisol levels of <2 μg/dl (∼50 nmol/l) are associated with remission and a low recurrence rate of ∼10% at 10 years. Persistent serum cortisol levels above 5 μg/dl (∼140 nmol/l) for up to 6 weeks following surgery require further evaluation. When serum cortisol levels are between 2 and 5 μg/dl, the patient can be considered in remission and can be observed without additional treatment for CD. A subset of patients can even develop complete adrenal insufficiency (serum cortisol levels below 2 μg/dl (∼50 nmol/l)) up to 12 weeks postsurgery (24, 25). Therefore, repeated evaluation in the early postoperative period is recommended. However, long-term follow-up is necessary for all patients because no single cortisol cutoff value excludes those who later experience disease recurrence, and up to 25% of patients develop a recurrent adenoma within 10 years after surgery (26, 27, 28).

Results

Incidence and prevalence of CD

Although epidemiologic data on CD are limited, several population-based studies indicate an incidence of 1.2–2.4 per million (14, 19) and the prevalence of diagnosed cases to be ∼39 per million population (14). Lindholm et al. (19) used the case definition as either the presence of a corticotroph adenoma or remission after neurosurgery, which yielded an estimated incidence rate of 1.2–1.7 per million per year. Etxabe & Vazquez (14) reported an incidence of 2.4 per million in Vizcaya, Spain. A large-scale retrospective survey carried out in New Zealand by Bolland et al. (29) found the approximate prevalence of all forms of Cushing’s syndrome (CS) (the majority of these cases were of pituitary origin) to be 79 per million and the incidence to be 1.8 per million per year. Differences in epidemiologic estimates may be attributable to varying case definitions (for instance, the study by Lindholm excluded cases in which the adenoma could not be localized or those that could not achieve remission from surgery), geographical differences, and temporal effects. The prevalence of CD may be underestimated due to unrecognized patients with mild symptoms and patients with a cyclic form of CD (30).

Time to diagnosis

Data on the time from onset of symptoms to diagnosis are also limited. In a prospective study by Flitsch et al. (31) of 48 patients with pituitary adenomas, including 19 who had ACTH-secreting adenomas causing CD, the reported time from onset of symptoms to diagnosis was 4.3 years. A study by Martinez Ruiz et al. (32), which was based on only four pediatric CD patients, reported the time between onset of symptoms and diagnosis as ranging from 2.5 to 5 years. Etxabe & Vazquez (14) estimated that the average time from onset of clinical symptoms to diagnosis in 49 CD patients was 45.8±2.7 months (6–144 months), thus 3.8 years. This is corroborated by the findings from a Belgian cross-sectional study on pituitary adenomas including CD, which estimated that patients experienced symptoms for an average of 45 months before diagnosis (33). However, the reliability and generalizability of these data are limited by small sample sizes and the retrospective nature of the studies. Indeed, the New Zealand data from Bolland et al. (29) report that on presentation, patients experienced symptoms for a median of 2.0 years (but ranging up to 20 years) before diagnosis. On the basis of data from the prospective European Registry on Cushing’s syndrome (ERCUSYN) (total number of patients=481, of whom 66% of patients had CD), median delay in diagnosis was 2 years (34).

Mortality in patients with CD

Mortality in patients with CD has been analyzed in several small studies, with overall rates reported as standardized mortality ratio (SMR) ranging from 1.7 to 4.8 (Table 1) (14, 15, 17, 19). In studies in which mortality was assessed among those in remission and those with persistent disease separately, patients with persistent hypercortisolemia consistently had the highest mortality risk (15, 19, 35, 36). In addition, TSS as a first-line treatment has been an important advance as high remission rates after initial surgery have been accompanied by mortality rates that mirror those observed in the general population (17, 35, 37). In a case series from the UK, it was found that the majority of deaths occurred before 1985, which was before TSS was employed as the routine first-line treatment at the center (36). In a recent retrospective study, 80 patients undergoing TSS for CD between 1988 and 2009 were evaluated, and long-term cure (defined as ongoing absence of hypercortisolism at last follow-up) was reported in 72% of patients. However, overall elevated mortality persisted in patients (SMR 3.17 (95% CI: 1.70–5.43)), including those who achieved ‘cure’ (SMR 2.47 (95% CI: 0.80–5.77)), although even higher mortality was seen in those with postoperative recurrence/persistent disease (SMR 4.12 (95% CI: 1.12–10.54) (38). Additionally, a nationwide, retrospective study in New Zealand reported significant persistently increased mortality both in macro- and microadenomas (SMR 3.5 (1.3–7.8) and 3.2 (2.0–4.8) respectively), despite long-term biochemical remission rates of 93 and 91% of patients, respectively (29).

Read more at http://m.eje-online.org/content/167/3/311.full

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Cushing’s Testing at NIH

Posted on May 21, 2017 by MaryO
Rank Status Study
1 Recruiting Study to Evaluate CORT125134 in Patients With Cushing’s Syndrome

Condition: Cushing’s Syndrome
Intervention: Drug: CORT125134
2 Recruiting Cushing’s Disease Complications

Condition: Cushing’s Disease
Intervention: Other: Exams and questionnaires
3 Recruiting The Accuracy of Late Night Urinary Free Cortisol/Creatinine and Hair Cortisol in Cushing’s Syndrome Diagnosis

Condition: Cushing Syndrome
Intervention:
4 Recruiting Treatment for Endogenous Cushing’s Syndrome

Condition: Endogenous Cushing’s Syndrome
Intervention: Drug: COR-003
5 Recruiting Saliva Cortisol Measurement as a Screening Test for Suspicious Cushings Syndrome in Children.

Condition: Cushings Syndrome
Intervention: Other: Children refered to the obesity clinic
6 Recruiting Safety and Efficacy of LCI699 for the Treatment of Patients With Cushing’s Disease

Condition: Cushing’s Disease
Intervention: Drug: LCI699
7 Recruiting Treatment of Cushing’s Disease With R-roscovitine

Condition: Cushings Disease
Intervention: Drug: R-roscovitine
8 Recruiting A Study of ATR-101 for the Treatment of Endogenous Cushing’s Syndrome

Condition: Cushing Syndrome
Interventions: Drug: ATR-101;   Drug: Placebos
9 Recruiting Evaluation of 68Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT, Octreotide and F-DOPA PET Imaging in Patients With Ectopic Cushing Syndrome

Condition: Cushing Syndrome
Interventions: Drug: F-DOPA PET Scan;   Drug: Mifepristone;   Drug: Ga-DOTATATE;   Drug: Octreoscan;   Other: CT, MRI
10 Not yet recruiting Endocrine Cardiomyopathy in Cushing Syndrome: Response to Cyclic GMP PDE5 inhibitOrs

Condition: Cushing’s Syndrome Cardiomyopathy
Intervention: Drug: Tadalafil
11 Recruiting Long-term Beneficial Metabolic Effects of Adrenalectomy in Subclinical Cushing’s Syndrome of Adrenal Incidentaloma

Condition: Cushing Syndrome
Intervention: Procedure: surgery
12 Recruiting Long Term Safety and Efficacy of Pasireotide s.c. in Patients With Cushing’s Disease

Condition: Cushings Disease
Intervention: Drug: SOM230
13 Recruiting New Imaging Techniques in the Evaluation of Patients With Ectopic Cushing Syndrome

Condition: Cushing Syndrome
Interventions: Drug: Pentetreotide;   Drug: 18-F-fluorodeoxyglucose;   Drug: (18F)-L-3,4-dihydroxyophenylalanine (18F-DOPA)
14 Not yet recruiting Targeting Iatrogenic Cushing’s Syndrome With 11β-hydroxysteroid Dehydrogenase Type 1 Inhibition

Condition: Iatrogenic Cushing’s Disease
Interventions: Drug: AZD4017 and prednisolone;   Drug: Placebo Oral Tablet and prednisolone
15 Not yet recruiting Assessment of Persistent Cognitive Impairment After Cure of Cushing’s Disease

Condition: Cushing’s Disease
Intervention: Device: Virtual radial task in 3D
16 Recruiting Biomarker Expression in Patients With ACTH-Dependent Cushing’s Syndrome Before and After Surgery

Condition: Cushing’s Syndrome
Intervention:
17 Recruiting Efficacy and Safety Evaluation of Osilodrostat in Cushing’s Disease

Condition: Cushing’s Disease
Interventions: Drug: osilodrostat;   Drug: osilodrostat Placebo
18 Recruiting Effects of Metyrapone in Patients With Endogenous Cushing’s Syndrome

Condition: Cushing’s Syndrome
Intervention: Drug: metyrapone
19 Recruiting Adrenal Venous Sampling in Patients With Overt or Subclinical Cushings Syndrome, and Bilateral Adrenal Tumors

Condition: Cushing Syndrome
Intervention: Radiation: Adrenal venous sampling
20 Recruiting Glycemic Fluctuations in Newly Diagnosed Growth Hormone-Secreting Pituitary Adenoma and Cushing Syndrome Subjects

Condition: Pituitary Adenoma
Intervention: Device: continuous glucose monitoring
Rank Status Study
21 Recruiting Targeted Therapy With Gefitinib in Patients With USP8-mutated Cushing’s Disease

Conditions: Cushing’s Disease;   Corticotrophin Adenoma
Intervention: Drug: Gefitinib
22 Recruiting Cardiac Steatosis in Cushing’s Syndrome

Conditions: Endocrine System Disease;   Cardiovascular Imaging
Intervention: Other: 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy and CMRI
23 Recruiting Study of Management of Pasireotide-induced Hyperglycemia in Adult Patients With Cushing’s Disease or Acromegaly

Conditions: Cushing’s Disease;   Acromegaly
Interventions: Drug: Pasireotide s.c.;   Drug: Sitagliptin;   Drug: Liraglutide;   Drug: Insulin;   Drug: Pasireotide LAR;   Drug: Metformin
24 Recruiting Study of Efficacy and Safety of Osilodrostat in Cushing’s Syndrome

Conditions: Cushing’s Syndrome;   Ectopic Corticotropin Syndrome;   Adrenal Adenoma;   Adrenal Carcinoma;   AIMAH;   PPNAD
Intervention: Drug: Osilodrostat
25 Recruiting Effects of Hormone Stimulation on Brain Scans for Cushing s Disease

Condition: Pituitary Neoplasm
Intervention: Drug: Acthrel
26 Recruiting Does Serum-DXM Increase Diagnostic Accuracy of the Overnight DXM Suppression Test in the Work-up of Cushing’s Syndrome?

Conditions: Cushing’s Syndrome;   Adrenal Incidentalomas;   Alcoholism;   Obesity
Intervention:
27 Recruiting Adrenalectomy Versus Follow-up in Patients With Subclinical Cushings Syndrome

Condition: Adrenal Tumour With Mild Hypercortisolism
Intervention: Procedure: Adrenalectomy
28 Recruiting Study of Adrenalectomy Versus Observation for Subclinical Hypercortisolism

Conditions: Hypercortisolism;   Cushing Syndrome
Interventions: Procedure: Adrenalectomy;   Other: Observation
29 Not yet recruiting Dynamic Hormone Diagnostics in Endocrine Disease

Conditions: Adrenal Insufficiency;   Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia;   Cushing Syndrome;   Growth Hormone Deficiency;   Acromegaly;   Primary Hyperaldosteronism
Intervention: Other: 27 hour subcutaneous fluid sampling
30 Recruiting An Investigation of Pituitary Tumors and Related Hypothalmic Disorders

Conditions: Abnormalities;   Craniopharyngioma;   Cushing’s Syndrome;   Endocrine Disease;   Pituitary Neoplasm
Intervention:
31 Recruiting Ga-68-DOTATOC -PET in the Management of Pituitary Tumours

Condition: Pituitary Tumours
Intervention: Procedure: Gallium-68 DOTATOC PET
32 Recruiting Efficacy of Mifepristone in Males With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Conditions: Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus;   Insulin Resistance
Interventions: Drug: Mifepristone 600 mg daily;   Drug: Placebo
33 Recruiting Targeted Therapy With Lapatinib in Patients With Recurrent Pituitary Tumors Resistant to Standard Therapy

Conditions: Pituitary Adenomas;   Prolactinomas
Intervention: Drug: Lapatinib
34 Recruiting Mutations of Glucocorticoid Receptor in Bilateral Adrenal Hyperplasia

Condition: General Glucocorticoid Resistance
Intervention: Genetic: blood collection for mutation characterization
35 Recruiting Defining the Genetic Basis for the Development of Primary Pigmented Nodular Adrenocortical Disease (PPNAD) and the Carney Complex

Conditions: Cushing’s Syndrome;   Hereditary Neoplastic Syndrome;   Lentigo;   Neoplasm;   Testicular Neoplasm
Intervention:
36 Not yet recruiting Reduction by Pasireotide of the Effluent Volume in High-output Enterostomy in Patients Refractory to Usual Medical Treatment

Condition: Enterostomy
Interventions: Drug: Pasireotide;   Drug: Placebo
37 Recruiting Mifepristone for Breast Cancer Patients With Higher Levels of Progesterone Receptor Isoform A Than Isoform B.

Condition: Breast Cancer
Intervention: Drug: Mifepristone
38 Recruiting SOM230 Ectopic ACTH-producing Tumors

Condition: Ectopic ACTH Syndrome
Intervention: Drug: Pasireotide
39 Recruiting Decreasing Rates of Intraurethral Catheterization Postoperatively in Spine Surgery

Condition: Post-operative Urinary Retention
Interventions: Drug: Tamsulosin;   Drug: Placebo
40 Recruiting Adrenal Tumors – Pathogenesis and Therapy

Conditions: Adrenal Tumors;   Adrenocortical Carcinoma;   Cushing Syndrome;   Conn Syndrome;   Pheochromocytoma
Intervention:

Filed under: adrenal, Clinical trials, Cushing's, Diagnostic Testing, pituitary, Rare Diseases, Treatments | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Cushing’s appears to begin its cardiovascular effects during childhood

Posted on May 6, 2017 by MaryO

ORLANDO – Cushing’s disease may begin to exert its harmful cardiovascular effects quite early, a small pediatric study has found.

Children as young as 6 years old with the disorder already may show signs of cardiovascular remodeling, with stiffer aortas and higher aortic pulse-wave velocity than do age-matched controls, Hailey Blain and Maya Lodish, MD, said at the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society.

“The study, which included 10 patients, is small, but we continue to add new patients,” said Dr. Lodish, director of the pediatric endocrinology fellowship program at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Ten more children are being added to the cohort now, and she and Ms. Blain, a former research fellow at NIH, intend to grow the group and follow patients longitudinally.

Cushing’s disease has long been linked with increased cardiovascular risk in adults, but the study by Dr. Lodish and Ms. Blain is one of the first to examine the link in children. Their findings suggest that early cardiovascular risk factor management should be a routine part of these patients’ care, Dr. Lodish said in an interview.

“It’s very important to make sure that there is recognition of the cardiovascular risk factors that go along with this disease. Elevated levels of cholesterol, hypertension, and other risk factors that are in these individuals should be ameliorated as soon as possible from an early age and, most importantly, physicians should be diagnosing and treating children early, once they are identified as having Cushing’s disease. And, given that we are not sure whether these changes are reversible, we need to make sure these children are followed very closely.”

Indeed, Dr. Lodish has reason to believe that the changes may be long lasting or even permanent.

“We are looking at these children longitudinally and have 3-year data on some patients already. We want to see if they return to normal pulse wave velocity after surgical cure, or whether this is permanent remodeling. There is an implication already that it may be in a subset of individuals,” she said, citing her own 2009 study on hypertension in pediatric Cushing’s patients. “We looked at blood pressure at presentation, after surgical cure, and 1 year later. A significant portion of the kids still had hypertension at 1 year. This leads us to wonder if they will continue to be at risk for cardiovascular morbidity as adults.”

Ms. Blaine, an undergraduate at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, worked on the study during a summer internship with Dr. Lodish and presented its results in a poster forum during meeting. She examined two indicators of cardiovascular remodeling – aortic pulse wave velocity and aortic distensibility – in 10 patients who were a mean of 13 years old. All of the children came to NIH for diagnosis and treatment of Cushing’s; as part of that, all underwent a cardiac MRI.

The patients had a mean 2.5-year history of Cushing’s disease Their mean midnight cortisol level was 18.8 mcg/dL and mean plasma adrenocorticotropic hormone level, 77.3 pg/mL. Five patients were taking antihypertensive medications. Low- and high-density lipoprotein levels were acceptable in all patients.

The cardiovascular measures were compared to an age-matched historical control group. In this comparison, patients had significantly higher pulse wave velocity compared with controls (mean 4 vs. 3.4 m/s). Pulse wave velocity positively correlated with both midnight plasma cortisol and 24-hour urinary free cortisol collections. In the three patients with long-term follow-up after surgical cure of Cushing’s, the pulse wave velocity did not improve, either at 6 months or 1 year after surgery. This finding echoes those of Dr. Lodish’s 2009 paper, suggesting that once cardiovascular remodeling sets in, the changes may be long lasting.

“The link between Cushing’s and cardiovascular remodeling is related to the other things that go along with the disease,” Dr. Lodish said. “The hypertension, the adiposity, and the high cholesterol all may contribute to arterial rigidity. It’s also thought to be due to an increase in connective tissue. The bioelastic function of the aorta may be affected by having Cushing’s.”

That connection also suggests that certain antihypertensives may be more beneficial to patients with Cushing’s disease, she added. “It might have an implication in what blood pressure drug you use. Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors increase vascular distensibility and inhibit collagen formation and fibrosis. It is a pilot study and needs longitudinal follow up and additional patient accrual, however, finding signs of cardiovascular remodeling in young children with Cushing’s is intriguing and deserves further study.”

Neither Ms. Blain nor Dr. Lodish had any financial disclosures.

Filed under: AACE 2017 Annual Meeting, Cushing's, Meetings and Conferences, symptoms | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Comparison of MRI techniques for detecting microadenomas in Cushing’s disease

Posted on April 29, 2017 by MaryO
1Department of Neurological Surgery and 2Department of Radiology, University of Virginia Health Science Center, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia
ABBREVIATIONS ACTH = adrenocorticotropic hormone; CMRI = conventional MRI; DMRI = dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI; FSH = follicle-stimulating hormone; IPSS = inferior petrosal sinus sampling; SE = spin echo; SGE = spoiled-gradient echo 3D T1 sequence; SPGR = spoiled gradient–recalled acquisition; VIBE = volumetric interpolated breath-hold examination.

INCLUDE WHEN CITING Published online April 28, 2017; DOI: 10.3171/2017.3.JNS163122.

Correspondence Edward H. Oldfield, Department of Neurological Surgery, University of Virginia, Box 800212, Charlottesville, VA 22908. email: .
OBJECTIVE

Many centers use conventional and dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DMRI) sequences in patients with Cushing’s disease. The authors assessed the utility of the 3D volumetric interpolated breath-hold examination, a spoiled-gradient echo 3D T1 sequence (SGE) characterized by superior soft tissue contrast and improved resolution, compared with DMRI and conventional MRI (CMRI) for detecting microadenomas in patients with Cushing’s disease.

METHODS

This study was a blinded assessment of pituitary MRI in patients with proven Cushing’s disease. Fifty-seven patients who had undergone surgery for Cushing’s disease (10 male, 47 female; age range 13–69 years), whose surgical findings were considered to represent a microadenoma, and who had been examined with all 3 imaging techniques were included. Thus, selection emphasized patients with prior negative or equivocal MRI on referral. The MRI annotations were anonymized and 4 separate imaging sets were independently read by 3 blinded, experienced clinicians: a neuroradiologist and 2 pituitary surgeons.

RESULTS

Forty-eight surgical specimens contained an adenoma (46 ACTH-staining adenomas, 1 prolactinoma, and 1 nonfunctioning microadenoma). DMRI detected 5 adenomas that were not evident on CMRI, SGE detected 8 adenomas not evident on CMRI, including 3 that were not evident on DMRI. One adenoma was detected on DMRI that was not detected on SGE. McNemar’s test for efficacy between the different MRI sets for tumor detection showed that the addition of SGE to CMRI increased the number of tumors detected from 18 to 26 (p = 0.02) based on agreement of at least 2 of 3 readers.

CONCLUSIONS

SGE shows higher sensitivity than DMRI for detecting and localizing pituitary microadenomas, although rarely an adenoma is detected exclusively by DMRI. SGE should be part of the standard MRI protocol for patients with Cushing’s disease.

Full text at http://thejns.org/doi/full/10.3171/2017.3.JNS163122

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