Hypopituitarism in elderly � A case series

ABSTRACT

Hypopituitarism is found to be one of the under investigated disease in elderly as it produces non specific symptoms which can be easily attributed to ageing and related co morbidities. Unless the hypopituitarism is identified and proper therapy is instituted, the clinical consequences of the untreated patients will be fatal. Here we report three cases of hypopituitarism in elderly patients whose clinical presentation and etiology was completely different. The first patient was fifty year old lady who is a known asthmatic for the past thirty years on steroids and had iatrogenic Cushing抯. On tapering the steroids she developed hypotension and giddiness. On eliciting the history she was suspected to have Sheehan抯 syndrome and was confirmed with investigations. She was advised to continue the steroids with calcium supplements. The second patient is an 80 years old female who came with complaints of increased tiredness daily more in the morning while getting up and improves slowly in the afternoon time and getting tired again in the night. When she was examined she had hypotension of 90/50 mm of hg. She was evaluated for Partial hypopituitarism and investigation confirmed hypopituitarism and she was started on Hydrocortisone tablets and she improved. The third patient was a 65 year old lady who was diagnosed to have diabetes mellitus and hypothyroidism and was on oral hypoglycemic drugs and eltroxine supplementation respectively. She had multiple hypoglycemic symptoms unresolved in spite of tapering the oral hypoglycemic drugs and on evaluation found to have partial hypopituitarism and started on T. Hydrocortisone and she improved well. We report these three cases as hypopitiutarism has multifaceted clinical presentation and needs high level of suspicion to diagnose it in elderly