ADRENAL VIRILISM

Abstract

The virilizing syndrome in children is characterized by the masculinization of the female and the attainment of precocious puberty in the male. There are some variations in the clinical syndrome that depend on the age of onset of the disease and the endocrine gland responsible. In the female, infantile virilism presents the clinical picture of pseudohermaphroditism and subsequent early masculinization. If the disease has its onset later in childhood, there is superimposed masculinization of the normal female genitalia. In the male, on the other hand, the precocity is along isosexual lines with the resultant clinical picture of macrogenitosomia precox. The virilizing syndrome may be associated with hypothalamic disease, constitutional precocity (both of which occur in boys along isosexual lines), and testicular or ovarian tumors, and, most frequently of all, may be due to hyperadrenalism. Because of this commoner occurrence, the syndrome has been called "adrenal virilism." Adrenal virilism may be