Normalized Early Postoperative Cortisol and ACTH Values Predict Nonremission After Surgery for Cushing Disease.

Context: Perioperative increases in adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol mimic results of corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) stimulation testing. This phenomenon may help identify patients with residual adenoma after transsphenoidal surgery (TSS) for Cushing disease (CD).

Objective: To predict nonremission after TSS for CD.

Design: Retrospective case-control study of patients treated at a single center from December 2003 until July 2016. Early and medium-term remission were assessed at 10 days and 11 months.

Patients And Setting: Two hundred and ninety-one consecutive TSS cases from 257 patients with biochemical evidence of CD seen at a clinical center.

Interventions: Normalized early postoperative values (NEPVs) for cortisol and ACTH were calculated as immediate postoperative cortisol or ACTH levels minus preoperative post-CRH-stimulation test levels.

Main Outcome Measures: Prediction of early nonremission was evaluated using logistic regression. Prediction of medium-term remission was assessed using Cox regression. Predictive ability was quantified by area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC).

Results: NEPVs for cortisol and ACTH predicted early nonremission [adjusted odds ratio (OR): 1.1; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.0, 1.1; P = 0.016 and adjusted OR: 1.0; 95% CI: 1.0, 1.0; P = 0.048, respectively]. AUROC for NEPV of cortisol was 0.78 (95% CI: 0.61, 0.95); for NEPV of ACTH, it was 0.80 (95% CI: 0.61, 0.98). NEPVs for cortisol and ACTH predicted medium-term nonremission [hazard ratio (HR): 1.1; 95% CI: 1.0, 1.1; P = 0.023 and HR: 1.0; 95% CI: 1.0, 1.0; P = 0.025, respectively].

Conclusions: NEPVs for cortisol and ACTH predicted nonremission after TSS for CD.