Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Adrenal insufficiency (AI) is a rare and potentially life-threatening disease. The most common causes are primary adrenal insufficiency (Addison’s Disease), due to an adrenocortical disease, and secondary insufficiency, due to disorders of the pituitary gland. Chronic glucocorticoid replacement is vital and patients should be educated about how to act in acute stress situations, in order to avoid adrenal crisis. Taking this into account, we organized educati...

Introduction: The major clinical importance of 17-OH-Progesterone is related to the diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring of Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH). Radioactive assays are widely used in clinical laboratories for measuring 17-OH-Progesterone. The appearance of a non-isotopic, chemiluminescent automatic assay, may be an interesting alternative if the performance of the assay remains the same or higher.Obective: To compare the 17-OH-Progestero...

Introduction: Radioactive assays are widely used in clinical laboratories for measuring free testosterone. The appearance of a non-isotopic, chemiluminescent automatic assay, may be an interesting alternative if the performance of the assay remains the same or higher.Objective: To compare the free testosterone results by radioimmunoassay (RIA) and chemiluminescent assay (CLIA) and to analyze the clinical impact taking into account the % concordance.<...

Introduction: IGF-I is a clinically relevant protein in the diagnosis and monitoring of treatment of growth disorders. The Growth Hormone Research Society and the International IGF Research Society have encouraged the adoption of a universal calibration for immunoassays to improve standardization of IGF-I measurements.Objectives: Comparison of new standardization IGF-I assay with IGF-I assay currently used in CHLC, Lisbon; To study whether the introducti...

Introduction: Anti-TSH receptors (TRAb) are an important marker in the differential diagnosis of the etiologies of hyperthyroidism. They detect serum TSH receptor immunoglobulins that interact with the TSH receptor without the functional discrimination of stimulating from blocking antibodies. A new assay has recently been released, that utilizes recombinant human TSH receptors (hTSHR) for the specific detection and quantification of thyroid stimulating autoantibodies (TSI).</p...

-Diana Borges Duarte and Francisca Puga are joint first authors and contributed equallyBackground: As therapeutic options improve for Cushing’s disease (CD), most patients can now achieve control or cure of hypercortisolism. However, persistent complaints are often reported. Evaluation of health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) can highlight impairments beyond the stricter clinical aspects. Our aim was to evaluate HR-QoL with a specific focus on men...

Introduction: LDL cholesterol (LDL-C) is usualy estimated using the Friedewald equation. This equation assumes a fixed factor of 5 for the ratio of triglycerides to very LPL cholesterol (TG:VLDL-C); however, the actual TG:VLDL-C ratio varies significantly across the range of triglyceride and cholesterol levels. A new method was proposed by Martin, S and co-workers using NHANES data. We aimed to evaluate the concordance Friedewald formula with the new method for LDL-C estimatio...

Background: Hypoglycemia is a common complication of Diabetes Mellitus treatment, especially in patients receiving intensive therapy. It can cause severe clinical consequences and is an obstacle to achieve glycemic targets.Methods: Retrospective study of severe hypoglycemia due to insulin or oral drug therapy that lead to hospitalization in a central hospital. We reviewed the medical records in the last 7 years (2006–2012) for blood glucose levels a...

Introduction: The presence of anti-thyroglobulin antibodies (ATG) can induce falsely lower thyroglobulin (Tg) values. The methods characteristics used for ATG measurement vary according to the equipment/reagent used. ATG at our centre is measured by Unicap.Objective: To assess if patients with negative ATG by Unicap® have different results with other equipment.Methods: A cross-sectional retrospective study was condu...

Objectives: The rarity of pituitary apoplexy renders it a difficult subject for audit; hence there are no evidence-based standards of optimum care for such patients. The main controversy in management relates to the role of acute surgical intervention. Recently, a more conservative management has been adopted towards patients presenting with this condition. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the differences in outcome between patients submitted to surgical and conservative...