Hyperprolactinemia and hypothyroidism (Van Wyk-Ross-Hennes syndrome)

In recent years, the attention of researchers of various specialties is increasingly attracted by diseases and syndromes associated with impaired secretion of prolactin (PRL). The isolation of PRL as an independent hormone from the human pituitary gland occurred relatively recently - in 1970. This event in subsequent years significantly changed the idea of ​​the regulation of reproductive function and the origin of infertility in women and men. It turned out that excessive secretion of PRL, which previously had a modest role as a lactation regulator in the postpartum period, is responsible for more than 25% of cases of menstrual irregularities, hypogonadism, and infertility. The accumulated clinical and experimental data showed that an impared secretion of PRL and the symptoms associated with this pathology occurs both in the primary lesion of prolactin-secreting structures, and in various other endocrine and non-endocrine diseases, as well as when taking some pharmacological drugs. These data formed the basis of the modern concept of primary hyperprolactinemia as an independent nosological unit and its secondary forms observed in other diseases. One of these diseases is primary hypothyroidism (PG). For the first time, the relationship of lactorrhea and hypothyroidism was noted by W. Jackson, who described the case of the development of persistent lactorrhea in a patient after thyroidectomy. He also suggested that thyroidectomy stimulates the secretion of lactotrophic hormone. The combination of PG with lactorrhea-amenorrhea is known in the literature as Van Wyk-Ross-Hennes syndrome. The isolation of this clinical variant was based on the general idea of ​​the relationship between hyperprolactinemia induced by PG and sexual disorders dominating this syndrome.