Medical treatment in Cushing's syndrome: dopamine agonists and cabergoline.

Dopamine (DA) is a catecholamine with a wide range of functions and whose five subtype receptors are found in different organs where they exert a mainly inhibitory action. Since this action may also appear in a number of secretory tumors in various locations, DA agonists have elicited some interest as a medical treatment for hypercorticism. Non-iatrogenic Cushing's syndromes are due in 70% of the cases to a pituitary adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH)-producing adenoma, and, less frequently, to an adrenal adenoma or an ectopic ACTH secretion by a neuroendocrine tumor.