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Updated: Feb 18, 2026
Functional Interrogation of Adult Hypothalamic Neurogenesis with Focal Radiological Inhibition
Published on: November 14, 2013
Addressing the post-irradiation hypothalamic-pituitary endocrine abnormalities of brain tumors in pediatric patients
Louloudenia Velentza1, Maria Tolia, Charikleia Christakou
1University of Thessaly, School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Larissa, Greece.
Purpose:
Hypothalamic-pituitary axis is susceptible to radiotherapy, causing endocrine disorders to childhood cancer survivors. We conducted a systematic review in order to assess the radiation-induced toxicity that leads to hormone secretion abnormalities and their severity in children with brain tumors.
Methods:
The data were collected by relevant studies on PubMed and EMBASE. Articles up to December 2016 were included. We selected studies which focused on children patients (<18 yr old) with brain tumors treated with radiotherapy and the consequences for their endocrine system.
Results:
Growth hormone (GH) deficiency was the most common post-irradiation abnormality among children cancer survivors, followed by gonadotrophin (GT), thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), corticotropin (ACTH) and prolactin (PRL) disorders.
Conclusions:
The age of the patient, total radiotherapy dose, number of fractions, fraction size and the duration of treatment seem to determine the severity of these disturbances.
