Acromegaly

Acromegaly, also known as gigantism, occurs when the pituitary gland produces too much of the growth hormone. The most common cause for this over production of growth hormone is a pituitary adenoma. A pituitary adenoma is a benign tumor on the pituitary gland that secretes hormones.

Symptoms of acromegaly is soft tissue swelling causing growth in the hand, feet, nose, lips, and ears. Also soft tissue swelling of the internal organs can occur in the heart, kidneys, and vocal cords causing heart failure, kidney failure and deepened voice and slowed speech. Acromegaly also causes protrusion of the brow and mandible. As the pituitary adenoma continues to grow, it will begin to compress surrounding structures in the brain and the optic nerves causing vision loss.

To stop the progression of acromegaly, the patient can have srugery to remove the pituitary adenoma, but usually they will also have to take medication the slow the production of the growth hormone.

The image above left is a sagittal MRI head image showing a pituitary adenoma. The image on the right is a skull x-ray of a patient with acromegaly