ENDOCRINE AND METABOLIC CONDITIONS RELATED TO PATHOLOGY IN THE HYPOTHALAMUS

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Abstract
The clinical case material of 100 patients with hypothalamic pathology selected from the literature has been surveyed. In the great majority of these cases autopsy or at lease surgical evidence of hypothalamic invasion by neoplasm or other pathology was available. The effect of such hypothalamic pathology in water metabolism, electrolyte balance and release of trophic hormones from the edenohypophysis has been discussed. Experimental evidence and clinical findings in these cases have been compared in regard to each of these individual phases of hypothalamic control. As far as the effect of disturbed hypothalamic functions on the target organs is concerned the gonads appeared to be most strongly impaired, the thyroid slightly and the adrenal cortices least. Disturbances of water metabolism, mainly diabetes insipidus, occurred in direct proportion to the destruction of the commonly accepted control centers. However, in a group of 30 patients with severe traumatic brain lesions and marked hyper-tonicity of the blood the question of impairment of other centers regulating electrolyte balance, as suggested in animal experimentation, was raised. Another group of 7 patients with hypothalamic pathology and disturbed blood protein levels has also been discussed.

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