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A 53-year-old woman with Nelson's syndrome was treated with 600 mg sodium valproate daily. Her plasma ACTH was effectively decreased, whilst the response of plasma ACTH to corticotrophin-releasing factor (CRF) was unaltered. The result of the CRF test suggested that sodium valproate, at least in the present patient, acted at the hypothalamic level.

Growth hormone (GH)-producing pituitary adenoma from a 50-year-old acromegalic female was studied histochemically, immunohistochemically and electron microscopically. The adenoma was characterized by numerous crystal-like amyloid bodies of 5 to 40 micron in diameter. In the periphery of the crystal-like amyloid, bundles of amyloid fibrils were closely associated with deep invaginations of adenoma cells. The adenoma cells had numerous vesicles and vacuoles filled with amyloid fibrils, some of which were continuous with extracellular space. The crystal-like amyloids, as well as the adenoma cells, were immunohistochemically positive for GH. It might be possible that disorder of hydrolysis of "prohormone," from which GH is elaborated, is responsible for the amyloid production, and that amyloid discharge is accompanied with immunoreactive GH.