Doege-Potter syndrome

Doege-Potter syndrome (DPS) is a paraneoplastic syndrome in which hypoglycemia is associated with the presence of one or more non-islet fibrous tumors in the pleural cavity. The hypoglycemia is the result of the tumors producing insulin-like growth factor 2. The syndrome was first described in 1930, by Doege and Potter working independently; the full term "Doege-Potter syndrome" was infrequently used until the publication of a 2000 article using the eponym.

DPS is rare (as of 1976, less than one hundred cases were described ), with a malignancy rate of 12-15%. Actual rates of hypoglycemia associated with a fibrous tumor are quite rare (a 1981 study of 360 solitary fibrous tumors of the lungs found that only 4% caused hypoglycemia ), and are linked to large tumours with high rates of mitosis. Removal of the tumor will normally resolve the symptoms.

Tumors causing DPS tend to be quite large; in one case a three kg, 23 by 21 by 12 cm mass was removed, sufficiently large to cause a collapsed lung. In X-rays, they appear as a single mass with visible, defined borders, appearing at the edges of the lungs or a fissure dividing the lobes of the lungs. Similar hypoglycemic effects have been related to mesenchymal tumors.