Endocrine Abstracts

Theca cells are indispensable for female reproduction being the source of androgens required for follicular oestrogen synthesis and also for interacting with androgen receptors in the ovary and other somatic tissues. Differentiated theca interna cells acquire responsiveness to LH and other endocrine signals, including insulin, that upregulate the steroidogenic pathway leading to androgen biosynthesis. In addition, numerous intraovarian factors of thecal, granulosal and/or oocy...

UNUSUAL PRESENTATION OF DIABETES FOOT ULCERAM Mousa, G Knight, S Muzulu, J R Rochester. Rotherham General Hospital, Moorgate Road, Rotherham S60 2UD.IntroductionPhalangeal metastases commonly display inflammatory symptoms that mimic an acute infection. We describe a rare case of bronchogenic carcinoma with metastases to the left 3rd and 4th toes, which presented as presumed diabetic foot ulceration.<p cla...

Urticaria and pruritis are rare skin manifestations of thyrotoxicosis, we present a case where the presenting symptom was generalized distressing urticarial rash.CaseA 39-year-old male presented with a history of itchy urticarial rash all over the body, treated unsuccessfully with antihistamines. Ten weeks after its onset he developed weight loss, palpitations and irritability. Blood tests showed him to be thyrotoxic (TSH 0.02 mIU/...

IntroductionPhalangeal metastases commonly display inflammatory symptoms that mimic an acute infection. We describe a rare case of bronchogenic carcinoma with metastases to the left 3rd and 4th toes, which presented as presumed diabetic foot ulceration.Case ReportA 74-year-old diabetic man presented with painful, inflamed and ulcerated left 3rd and 4th toes. A clinical diagnosis of infected diabetic toes was ...

Aim: To evaluate the effect of PPARG2 Pro12Ala, TNFα G(308)A and G(238)A, LIPC C(-514)T, ACE I/D, SLCO1B1 Val174Ala polymorphism on the response to statins therapy in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).Methods: We consecutively recruited patients with type 2 DM requiring lipid-lowering therapy according to current guidelines. Patients were started on either atorvastatin 10 or 20 mg. After 12 month of st...

Introduction: Recent data indicate that women affected by the polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) are at a greater risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD). The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of the association ethinylestradiol 30 μg–drospirenone 3 mg (DRP/EE30 μg) plus metformin and weight loss on surrogate markers of CVD in PCOS.Methods: Twenty-five young women with PCOS (mean age 22.76±0.83 years, body mass index (BMI...

In this study we employed a novel bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) biosensor to study the coupling specificity of somatostatin receptor 5 (SST5) and its naturally occurring mutant R240W in living cells. Our previous data demonstrated that SST5 carrying the R240W mutation as well as other mutations in the third intracellular loop maintained the ability to inhibit intracellular cAMP levels similarly to the wild-type but failed to mediate the inhibition of intrace...

As the sensitivity of a single GH test is poor, current NICE guidelines (2010) state that to make a diagnosis of isolated GH deficiency (IGHD), two stimulation tests need to show subnormal peak GH levels. In our centre we use insulin tolerance (ITT) or glucagon stimulation (GST) as the 1st test, and arginine stimulation (AST) as the 2nd test.The purpose of this study was to identify the proportion of children with discrepant test results; and to establis...

Approximately 650 000 children born in the UK each year, using a definition of a birth weight less than 2 S.D. 14 950 children are born SGA. 90% of these children will experience catch up growth by the age of 4 years leaving around 1500 children eligible for treatment with recombinant human growth hormone. Data from the BSPED audit in 2016 recorded 177 children started on GH at a mean age of 6.2 years – all of these children will have been short at 4 years ...

Of the many neuropeptide hormones that are secreted by the placenta our attention focussed some years ago on the tachykinin, neurokinin B (NKB) as the blood concentration of this decapeptide was found to be raised in pre-eclampsia and nearly all of the life threatening symptoms seen in this disease appeared to be through progressive activation of the three neurokinin receptors. Interestingly only a limited number of antisera raised against the synthetic 10mer (the form found i...