PubMedDate not supplied
Six patients with suprasellar extension of pituitary HGH-secreting tumors showed the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) content in human growth hormone (HGH) to be very high, i.e. 164.3 +/- muU/ml (mean +/- SEM) (range 8.4--413.8 muU/ml) as compared to ten patients with uncomplicated acromegaly whose values were 50-fold lower, i.e. 3.4 +/- 0.5 muU/ml (range 0.6--7.0 muU/ml), and nine patients with suprasellar extension of other pituitary tumors, showing also low levels of HGH in the CSF, i.e. 2.9 +/- 0.8 muU/ml (range 0.6--7.2 muU/ml). A control group of 29 normal patients without pituitary or brain diseases showed extremely low values of HGH in the CSF (1.9 +/- 0.2 muU/ml), one third being below the sensitivity limit of the assay method. Another control group of 70 patients with hypothalamic diabetes insipidus (n = 18), brain traumatisms (n = 10), brain surgery (n = 20), as well as various brain diseases (n = 22), also showed low HGH levels in the CSF, like the normal control group. It is shown that a high level of HGH in the CSF has a potential usefulness in the diagnosis of suprasellar extension of the pituitary mass in acromegaly.