What is the relevance of galactorrhea in connective tissue disease?
The first report of HPRL in SLE was in 1987 in male patients [10]. None of these patients had galactorrhea. Since then, HPRL (defined as serum PRL greater than 20 ng/ml for men, 25 ng/ml for women) has been reported in 15-31% of adult SLE patients. This is in contrast to the much lower frequency of HPRL in healthy women from 14 to 43 years of age of 3% [11]. There is contradictory data with regard to pre-pubertal SLE patients. Some studies report normal levels of sex hormones (PRL, follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH), while others have identified from 9-31% of juvenile SLE patients with HPRL [12]. There has been no report of galactorrhea in any of the patients with primary HPRL and SLE. HPRL in SLE may be explained by the stimulation of pituitary PRL secretion by cytokines. IL-1, IL-6 and other cytokines have been shown to stimulate release of PRL and other hormones from cultured rat pituitary cells. However, it is not well established whether cytokines in t
