Spontaneous remission in the ahumada : del castillo syndrome

Abstract

The association of spontaneous galactorrhea with primary or secondary amenorrhea is a striking clinical picture and has increasingly engaged the attention of clinicians as, during the past two decades, numerous and diverse etiological factors have been incriminated. Much stress has been laid in the past on the persistence and intractability of symptoms in patients belonging to the group originally described by Ahumada and del Castillo (1932). A case study of a thirty-year-old nulliparous woman, who gave a history of six months amenorrhea and had noticed spontaneous ejection of milky fluid from the breasts in the latter three months is reported and discussed. The patient's clinical picture coincides with the group often known as belonging to the Ahumada-del Castillo. In this case the patient stopped lactating spontaneously shortly after her acute renal illness. One can rule out that this was solely due to the stopping of hypotensive drugs as the galactorrhea and amenorrhea antedated by months the use of any drug. It is the objective of this article to indicate that the syndrome of idiopathic galactorrhea and amenorrhea need not necessarily have a poor therapeutic prognosis but may show spontaneous remission.