Introduction:

The clinical diagnosis of endogenous hypercortisolism can be complex if clinical manifestations are not pathognomonic. It is important to know what are distinctive in our patients, which allows to diagnose the disease early.

Objective:

To determine the sensitivity, specificity and positive predictive value of clinical manifestations for diagnosis. of endogenous hypercortisolism.

Methods:

Descriptive and cross-sectional study. Group I was made up of 65 patients with endogenous hypercortisolism; group II (comparison) was made up of 75 patients with clinical suspicion of endogenous hypercortisolism, finally ruled out. We studied patients diagnosed of endogenous hypercortisolism from 2004 to 2017, treated at the Endocrinology Institute. Sensitivity, specificity and positive predictive values ​​were determined for the diagnosis of endogenous hypercortisolism for each symptom and sign separately, as well as for the combinations of three clinical manifestations; in addition, binary logistic regression was performed to identify the combinations of symptoms that best predict the presence of endogenous hypercortisolism. A statistically significant difference was considered with p ≤ 0.05.

Results:

Most of the symptoms presented a sensitivity lower than 45%. Waist circumference was the only sign that showed high sensitivity (76.9%), low specificity (28.6%), and positive predictive value of 42.0%. When two or three of these signs (redness, “full-moon” face, and hirsutism) are present, the possibility of having endogenous hypercortisolism is 75.4%, with positive predictive value of 71%; and, when they are not present, the probability of not having it is 77,5%.

Conclusions:

The combination of sensitivity, specificity and positive predictive value of the symptoms and signs in isolation does not predict the diagnosis of the disease; however, the presence of two or three of the symptoms and/or signs has a high sensitivity and positive predictive value for the diagnosis of endogenous hypercortisolism. The combinations that best predict the possibility of having an endogenous hypercortisolism are thin skin, edema and acne; "full-moon" face, hirsutism and redness; as well as "buffalo hump," bruises and stretch marks.

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