Article Text

Download PDFPDF
CASE REPORT
Fountain of steroid from an ectopic ACTH-producing tumour
  1. Tom Edward Ngo Lo1,
  2. Cecilia Alegado Jimeno1,2
  1. 1Department of Medicine – Endocrinology, Philippine General Hospital, Manila,  Philippines
  2. 2Department of Pharmacology, University of the Philippines, College of Medicine, Manila, Philippines
  1. Correspondence to Dr Tom Edward Ngo Lo, tomedwardlo{at}yahoo.com

Summary

This case is of a 39-year-old Filipino woman who within 2 months developed, Cushing's features she had no known comorbidities and no history of steroid intake. The patient also presented with hyperpigmentation of knuckles and toes, metabolic alkalosis and persistent hypokalaemia noted as proximal muscle weakness. The patient was referred to our institution for acutely worsening behavioural and psychiatric changes. Work-up for endogenous Cushing's syndrome revealed a significant adrenocorticotropic hormone production from an ectopic source. Further imaging was requested to locate the tumour, but the patient eventually succumbed to the drastic complications of hypercortisolism. On autopsy, the patient was found to have an ectopic well-differentiated neuroendocrine tumour located at the pancreatic head with metastasis to the right hepatic lobe.

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.