Luteinizing Hormone and Insulin Resistance in Menopausal Patients with Adrenal Incidentalomas: the Cause-Effect Relationship?

Summary

Objective

A high prevalence of insulin resistance (IR) has proven to manifest in patients with adrenal incidentalomas (AI). It has been demonstrated that an increase in IR is related to the size of tumourous masses; additionally, luteinizing hormone (LH) dependent adrenal pathologies are well documented in patients with LH responsive adrenal tumours occurring under conditions of physiologically elevated LH. We hypothesized that an association between LH and insulin might play a role in adrenal tumourigenesis and steroidogenesis.

Design

The aim of our study was to investigate the association between LH and IR; adrenal tumour size (ATS) and IR; LH and cortisol after the 1 mg overnight dexamethasone test (1 mg-DST); and ATS and 1 mg-DST cortisol in AI patients. This was a case-control study conducted in the Clinic for Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases in Belgrade, Serbia. The total study group consisted of 105 menopausal women: 75 AI patients [27 with non-functional AI (NAI) and 48 with (possible) autonomous cortisol secretion ((P)ACS)] and 30 age-, BMI-, LH- and menopause duration-matched healthy control (HC) women. To estimate IR, we used homeostasis model assessment (HOMA-IR).

Results

LH and ATS are in a significant positive correlation with HOMA-IR and 1 mg-DST cortisol in menopausal patients with AI and (P)ACS.

Conclusions

Our data points to a possible cause-effect relationship between LH and insulin in patients with AI and (P)ACS adding to the body of evidence of their involvement in adrenal tumourigenesis and steroidogenesis.

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