Hello and welcome to the Zero to Finals podcast.

My name is Tom and in this episode I'm going to be talking to you about Cushing's Syndrome.

And you can find written notes on this topic at zero to finals.com slash Cushings

or in the endocrinology section of the zero to finals medicine book.

So let's get straight into it.

Cushing syndrome refers to the features of prolonged high levels of glucocorticoid

steroid hormones in the body.

There are two groups of corticosteroid hormones,

glucocorticoids, for example cortisol,

and mineralocorticoids, for example, aldosterone.

Cortisol is the primary natural glucocorticoid hormone produced by the adrenal glands.

Cushing's disease refers specifically to a pituitary adenoma secreting excessive adrenocortocotropic hormone,

or ACTH, which stimulates excessive cortisol release from the adrenal glands.

Cushing's disease is a cause of Cushing's syndrome, but it's not the only cause of Cushing's

syndrome. Prolonged use of exogenous corticosteroids such as predniscillone or dexamethosone

often causes Cushing syndrome.

Exogenous refers to when it originates outside the body.

Exo refers to outside and genus refers to the origin.

Let's talk about the features.

You can remember the features on inspection by thinking of a patient

who is round in the middle with thin limbs. The features are a round face, which may be known as a

moon face, central obesity, abdominal striae, which are stretch marks across the abdomen where it's rapidly enlarged,

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