CASE REPORT article
Front. Endocrinol.
Sec. Clinical Diabetes
This article is part of the Research TopicLipids and Wasting Disorders in Disease and AgingView all 7 articles
Case report: Metreleptin treatment enables successful pregnancy in a female with congenital generalized lipodystrophy
Provisionally accepted
MARIA SOMALI1*
EMMANOUIL KORAKAS2
Eirini Pizirtzidou3
Zoe A. Efstathiadou4Michail Sapranidis4Zadalla Mouslech5- 1Department of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Nexthealth S.A., Thessaloniki, Greece
- 2University College London Hospital, LONDON, United Kingdom
- 3Diethnes Panepistemio tes Ellados, Thessaloniki, Greece
- 4Department of Endocrinology, “Hippokration” General Hospital of Thessaloniki, Greece, Thessaloniki, Greece
- 5Department of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Nexthealth S.A., General Clinic, Thessaloniki, Greece, Thessaloniki, Greece
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Lipodystrophy is a rare group of conditions characterized by partial or total absence of adipose tissue in the body. The lipodystrophy is either congenital or acquired and is also classified further to either generalized or partial. Lipodystrophy is associated with severe insulin resistance and metabolic disorders due to ectopic fat deposition. The therapeutic approach of lipodystrophy is limited to preventing the exacerbation of complications associated to metabolic disorders and include low fat diet and exercise in combination with medication for diabetes control and fibrates or statins to control dyslipidemia. Metreleptin is an adjunctive injectable treatment for people with generalized lipodystrophy due to leptin deficiency aiming to improve appetite and metabolic markers. Metreleptin treatment has also beneficial impact on liver and kidney function, the cardiovascular and the reproductive system and fertility. In the current paper we present a rare case of a female patient of reproductive age with congenital generalized lipodystrophy type 1 who received metreleptin treatment for the control of her diabetes and metabolic disorders. After 13 months of treatment with metreleptin the patient conceived spontaneously and delivered a healthy neonate. This rare and educational case indicates that metreleptin plays a key role in the adipose-mediated regulation of fertility.
Keywords: Lipodystrophy, AGPAT2 gene, Leptin, Metreleptin, Fertility
Received: 29 Sep 2025; Accepted: 31 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 SOMALI, KORAKAS, Pizirtzidou, Efstathiadou, Sapranidis and Mouslech. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: MARIA SOMALI, somalimaria@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.