POMC and depressive symptom measurement: Corticotrophinomas are associated with hypersecretion of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), which leads to excessive production of glucocorticoids by the adrenal cortex, and the resulting hypercortisolemia causes Cushing’s disease, whose clinical features include obesity, redistribution of adipose tissue, muscle atrophy with preclinical myopathy, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, osteoporosis, subfertility, skin thinning, depression, psychosis and increased susceptibility to infection (Daly et al. 2009, Ntali et al. 2013, Yates et al. 2015).