Occult endocrine dysfunction in patients with cirrhosis of liver

BACKGROUND: Liver dysfunction leads to endocrine disturbance due to the alteration in protein metabolism or synthesis. We studied the presence of occult endocrine dysfunction in liver cirrhosis and compared the same with underlying etiology. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We evaluated thirty patients with liver cirrhosis in this cross-sectional, observational study. All subjects were assessed for pituitary, thyroid, adrenal, and gonadal function. The patients were divided into Group 1 (cirrhosis, n = 30) and Group 2 (controls, n = 15) and the data were analyzed with appropriate statistical tests. RESULTS: The study participants (20 males, 10 females) had a mean age of 54.5 ± 12.4 years and duration of the cirrhosis 5.1 ± 2.7 years. Four patients were in Child Class A, 11 and 15 patients were in Child Classes B and C, respectively. Eleven out of thirty patients (37%) had endocrine disorders, that include subclinical hypothyroidism (n = 3), primary hypothyroidism (n = 1), Sick Euthyroid syndrome (n = 3), central hypothyroidism (n = 2), secondary hypogonadism (n = 3) and growth hormone deficiency in three patients. Two patients had partial hypopituitarism and one patient had complete hypopituitarism. CONCLUSION: Occult endocrine dysfunction of thyroid and gonadal axes is common in patients with cirrhosis of the liver. The hormonal abnormalities are not different based on the etiology of the cirrhosis.