DERANGEMENT OF LH EPISODIC SECRETION IN CLUSTER HEADACHE SUFFERERS

In patients with cluster headache (CH) testosterone plasma levels have been consinstently reported to be lower than in normal males. Thus, w e studied LH pulsatile secretory pattern in a group of 29 males suffer ing from CH. Ten of them were studied longitudinally, while 19 were st udied cross-sectionally only during active (n=9) or attack free (n=10) phases. Nine healthy, age-matched males were studied as reference gro up. All subjects underwent a pulsatility study of 6 hours, sampling ev ery 15 minutes. CH patients resulted to have a lower LH pulsatile rele ase both during active (3.6+/-0.9 peaks/6h, p<0.0001) and attack free (4.1+/-0.9 peaks/6h, p<0.004) phases than normal males (5.2+/-0.6 peak s/6h). When longitudinally studied, CH patients (n=10) showed lower LH secretory episodes during the active than during the attack free phas e (3.3+/-0.9 and 4.1+/-0.7 peaks/6h, p<0.05). Testosterone plasma leve ls did not differ between active and free phases (4.3+/-1 and 4.7+/-0. 8 ng/ml, respectively), while, in patients they were significantly low er than in controls (6.8+/-0.9 ng/ml, p<0.01)). These data demonstrate an impaired function of the hypothalamo-pituitary axis possibly due t o an overactivity of the opioid neuromodulation.