Cyclical haematological changes in a case of hypopituitarism

Abstract

A 40-year-old woman presented to our emergency department in an altered state following a generalised tonic-clonic seizure. On regaining consciousness, she gave a history of bleeding tendencies and menorrhagia, fatigue, nausea, vomiting and appetite loss for a long time. She had received multiple blood transfusions in the last 10 years. Investigations revealed severe hyponatraemia, transaminitis and pancytopenia, which showed cyclical fluctuations in the hospital. Hyponatraemia was attributed to a central cause owing to secondary hypothyroidism and hypocortisolism on evaluation. A diagnosis of cyclical thrombocytopenia was made by logging the trends of blood cell lines and applying the Lomb-Scargle test. Liver biopsy showed features of transfusion hemosiderosis explaining transaminitis. All of the haematological abnormalities and clinical symptoms resolved on thyroxine and corticosteroid replacement, suggesting causal association hypopituitarism with cyclical thrombocytopenia