Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Hypoglycaemia is considered a medical emergency and is treated as such. However, our experience as junior doctors has shown us that hyperglycaemia, despite being equally damaging to patients’ long term prognosis, can often be left to ‘run high’. This could be due to a number of factors, surrounding how often blood sugars (BM) are checked and how they are managed. We audited three standards set out in local guidelines for BM monitoring in diabetic pat...

Introduction: Symptoms of hypothyroidism in childhood include tiredness, poor growth, weight gain, dry skin and constipation. Whilst muscular manifestations including myalgia, muscle weakness, aches and cramps, stiffness and delayed tendon jerk relaxation are common, rhabdomyolysis has also rarely been reported.Case presentation: An 11-year-old female presented to her GP with a history of tiredness and poor growth. Initial blood tests performed by the GP...

Objectives: Despite the increasing role of molecular profiling, the association between mutation expression and pre-operative cytology for thyroid nodules has not been established.Methods: We collected data on patients who underwent molecular profiling of thyroid nodules in Bethesda categories III to VI from two tertiary academic hospitals and via systematic literature review. We tested the associations between Bethesda categories and molecular mutation ...

Background: Phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K) is a critical mediator of insulin action, and influences cellular growth, survival and metabolism. Recently, somatic gain-of-function mutations in the p110α catalytic subunit of PI3K (PIK3CA) have been found in a spectrum of overgrowth disorders, outlining the possibility of treatment with inhibitors of the PI3K–AKT–mTOR pathway.Methods/Results: A 37-year-old female, presented with life-long...

Background: Transplantation for cancer indications is evolving rapidly in UK and Ireland. Liver transplantation [LT] for unresectable neuroendocrine tumour liver metastases [NET LM] is one of three new cancer indications. It has the potential to significantly improve survival outcomes however, transplant benefit has likely been achieved only by highly experienced Centre(s). Since eligible patients for transplantation also have excellent prognosis with standard management, care...

Introduction: Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a conformational disease (CD), characterised by deposition (fibrils and cytotoxic oligomers) of the human islet amyloid peptide (hIAPP). CDs have devastating effects on the sufferers and their caregivers, as well as a tremendous economic impact on families and the health system. Novel molecule candidates targeting self-assembled amyloidogenic proteins represent a potential therapeutic approach for CDs.Methods/des...

Introduction: Pituitary adenomas (PA) are tumours of the anterior pituitary. Despite the benign nature these neoplasms cause increased mortality and morbidity. Clinically relevant PAs affect around 0.1% of population during their lifetime. Currently, there is no human PA cell culture models. Tissue cultures derived from PA surgery materials depending on harvesting conditions can form free floating aggregates called pituispheres (PS) or adherent mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC)....

Deiodinase enzymes have an important role in thyroid hormone metabolism. Type I 5′-monodeiodinase (D1) converts thyroxine (T4) to triiodothyronine (T3), while type III 5-monodeiodinase (D3) inactivates T3 and produces reverse-T3 (rT3) from T4. In fetal sheep, plasma T3 rises towards term in association with the prepartum cortisol surge. This study investigated the effect of cortisol on tissue de...