Macroprolactinemia in Patients Presenting with

acroprolactinemia may account for a significant number of hyperprolacti-nemic sera including hyperandroge-nemic women and this may lead to unnecessary diagnostic and therapeu-tic procedures and false exclusion of PCOS. The aim of this study was to evaluate macroprolacti-nemia in women with hyperandrogenemic symptoms and hyperprola-ctinemia. Materials and Methods: In a series of 200 hyper-androgenemic women aged 14-40 year, present-ing to the endocrine clinic of Ghaem Hospital between 2004-2006, serum prolactin was meas-ured. Those with hyperprolactinemia (prolactin>35µg/L), were studied for the presence of ma-croprolactinemia using the by polyethylenegly-col precipitation test (PEG). Results: Mean age of hyperandrogenic women was 24.0±5.6 years; 38 (19%) of the patients had serum prolactin>30 9g/L and in 9 of them the rise was>35 9g/L. Macroprolactinemia was de-tected in 5 of those with serum prolactin>35 9g/L who also carried the diagnosis of PCOS. In the remaining 4 patients there was true hyper-prolactinemia and prolactin remained elevated after PEG precipitation test (52±10, vs 48±9 9g/L, respectively). Conclusion: It is necessary to rule out macropr-olactinemia in women presenting with hyperan-drogenemic symptoms and hyperprolactinemia to prevent false exclusion of PCOS. This may help to avoid expensive and unnecessary diag-nostic procedures and inappropriate use of do-paminergic agonists