Management of adrenal insufficiency in the setting of chronic HIV and advanced extra-adrenal Hodgkin lymphoma

Abstract

Adrenal insufficiency is one of the most common endocrine disorders that presents in patients with HIV. Aetiologies of adrenal dysfunction include opportunistic infection, malignancy, such as lymphoma or Kaposi sarcoma, and chronic cytokine-mediated disruption of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. In the case of lymphoma, the manifestation of adrenal insufficiency is most often via primary neoplastic infiltration. However, a spectrum of associated cytokine-mediated abnormal immune responses and coagulopathies may independently contribute to adrenal insufficiency. Literature regarding the presence of the endocrine disorder in patients with both HIV and lymphoma is scarce. We report a case of adrenal insufficiency in a patient with well-controlled HIV and advanced Hodgkin lymphoma without primary adrenal involvement with suboptimal response to corticosteroids who exhibited improvement following initiation of chemotherapy, demonstrating that chemotherapy should not be delayed until adrenal insufficiency resolves and in fact may aid in resolution of adrenal dysfunction.