Acromegaly

Complications of Acromegaly

Possible complications

If acromegaly is left untreated, you may beat risk of the following health problems:

Type 2 diabetes
High blood pressure (hypertension)
Cardiovascular disease
Cardiomyopathy (a disease of the heart muscle)
Arthritis as a result of overgrowth of bone and cartilage
Bowel polyps , which can potentially turn into bowel cancer if left untreated

Left untreated, these complications can become serious and fatal.

Medically Reviewed by a doctor on 23 Jun 2016

Articles for acromegaly

Symptoms of Acromegaly

Acromegaly can cause a wide range of symptoms that tend to develop slowly over time. Typical symptoms include: joint pain; large hands and feet; carpal tunnel syndrome (compression of the nerve in the wrist, causing numbness and weakness of the hands); thick, coarse, oily skin; skin tags.

Causes of Acromegaly

Acromegaly is caused by excessive production of growth hormone. This usually occurs as the result of a benign (non-cancerous) brain tumour in the pituitary gland called an adenoma, but rare cases have been linked to tumours elsewhere in the body, such as in the lungs and pancreas.

Complications of Acromegaly

If acromegaly is left untreated, you may beat risk of the following health problems: type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure (hypertension), cardiovascular disease, cardiomyopathy (a disease of the heart muscle), etc.

Diagnosis of Acromegaly

If your doctor suspects acromegaly from your symptoms, they will order blood tests to measure your levels of human growth hormone. Levels of growth hormone naturally vary from minute to minute as it is released from the pituitary glandin spurts.

Introduction

Acromegaly is a condition in which the body produces too much growth hormone, leading to the excess growth of body tissues over time. Acromegaly is a genetic condition which develops when the pituitary glands in the brain overproduce growth hormone. This usually occurs before the onset of puberty.

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