CSRF Recommends Insightful Books About Cushing’s Disease

The Cushing’s Support and Research Foundation (CSRF) is calling attention to three books of potential interest to Cushing’s Disease patients and to healthcare providers who treat the relatively rare endocrine disorder.

In Cushing’s Disease, the adrenal glands release too much of the hormone cortisol into the body for long periods of time. It affects an estimated 10-15 people per one million people annually, is most common in adults between the ages of 20 and 50, and five times more common in women than men.

Cushing’s Disease: An Often Misdiagnosed and Not So Rare Disorder (Elsevier/Academic Press, 2016, ISBN9780128043400) by Elissa Kline, edited by Edward Laws, MD, and CSRF founding president Louise Pace, examines the epidemiology of Cushing’s, including incidence and prevalence statistics.

Kline also discusses signs and symptoms of Cushing’s and the disorder’s most common co-morbidities, which can include diabetes mellitus, hypertension, osteoporosis, amenorrhea (absence of menstrual bleeding), and infertility. She also reviews surgical, medical, and radiotherapeutic Cushing’s treatments and their indications, results, risks, and possible complications.

A chapter on Cushing’s viewed from the patient’s perspective addresses important issues like coping with Cushing’s, the disease’s effects on quality of life, and potentially associated psychosomatic issues. There  also is a short chapter on pediatric Cushing’s.

In a statement on the CSRF website, Pace explains this book is an attempt to provide a comprehensive resource that will become essential reading for both the wide spectrum of physicians and other medical professionals who treat patients with Cushing’s symptoms, biomedical researchers of rare endocrine disorders, medical students, and patients seeking to know more about diagnosis and treatment of the disorder.

The print version is available from Amazon, from the publisher Elsevier, and from other retail booksellers. The electronic version also is available from several retailers. The price is approximately $60.

The second book in the CSRF’s featured triad, Cushing’s Syndrome, edited by Lewis S. Blevins, Jr., MD, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. The book provides the reader with an update on the clinical presentation, diagnosis, and treatment of patients with Cushing’s syndrome. The molecular mechanisms underlying pituitary and adrenal causes of Cushing’s syndrome are reviewed in detail, successful diagnostic and treatment strategies that have been employed by readers in the field are recommended and discussed, and numerous advances in the pathophysiology and diagnosis of Cushing’s syndrome are addressed by experts in the field.

This book is written primarily for a physician audience, but CSRF says that while terminology used is “very medical,” it may be understandable for medically inclined patients. “Cushing’s Syndrome” is published by Kluwer Academic Publishers (ISBN 1-4020-7131-0, and is available in print or ebook form from Springer starting at about $225).

The third book, “Coping with Prednisone (And Other Cortisone-Related Medicines),” by sisters Eugenia Zukermann and Julie R. Ingelfinger, MD, is concisely summarized by its subtitle: “It May Work Miracles, But How Do You Handle the Side Effects?”

CSRF says that while this book is written specifically for patients who must take steroid medications to control other medical conditions, Cushing’s patients also have found its address of dealing with weight gain, depression, and other side effects of steroid medications useful.

Amazon.com’s review notes that the book begins with the basics and proceeds to lead readers through the promises and perils of prednisone therapy, ranging from describing the drug’s side effects to recommending a diet that promises to “beat the bloat and the munchies,” and includes helpful recipes.

Amazon says what makes this guide particularly compelling is not only the “easy-to-chew, easy-to-digest presentation,” but also the sisters’ “unique way through it,” including information on common, yet daunting, problems such as changing doctors, treatment for the very young and very old, long-term medication, and withdrawal from high-dose steroids.

Published by St. Martin’s Griffin, the book (ISBN-10-0312-19570-2) is available from the publisher for $16.95, from Amazon.com for less than $10, or from other retail booksellers.