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Historical Notes
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Autoimmune hypophysitis was first described in 1962 by Goudie and Pinkerton (from Glasgow, UK). They reported a 22 year old woman who died of adrenal insufficiency 14 months after the birth of her second child. Symptoms had begun approximately 3 months post-partum, with lassitude, goiter and amenorrhea. At autopsy the anterior pituitary was diffusely infiltrated by lymphocytes (the posterior lobe was normal), the thyroid showed Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and the adrenal glands could not be found and thus presumed severely atrophic. We found, however, in the autopsy archives of the Johns Hopkins hospital, an earlier patient (1932) with the features of autoimmune hypophysitis.
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